


sleep hides my swimming eyes

by thotchakra



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, rated t+ for language, tags are minor occurrences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28667973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thotchakra/pseuds/thotchakra
Summary: "'It’s either you or this asshole who works at the pharmacy,' he continued. 'Razor-thin pickings out here.''Then Killua and I can be friends,' Gon said.Killua swallowed thickly. He rapped his knuckle on the forehead of Gon’s mask, the hollow knocking sound echoing out into the clearing. The kitsune painted and etched into the mask stared at him in unfeeling black and red lines."A fateful encounter. Based on "Hotarubi no Mori e" by Yuki Midorikawa.
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 14
Kudos: 22





	1. jo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my first thingy for hxh 🤪 enjoys

Killua was feeling around under his bed when his hand hit something hard, and it clattered to the floor. He found the strap of his duffel bag--what he’d been looking for in the first place--and yanked it out. He bent his neck at an odd angle to check what had fallen and saw a face staring up at him: a wooden kabuki mask, with chipped white paint and a faded design detailing an unfamiliar spirit. Splinters lifted from the sides. 

He went around his room, throwing clothes at his duffel bag and throwing odd glances at the mask. It certainly didn’t belong to him; sure, his sense of taste tended to stray toward the _eclectic_ , but he would’ve remembered if he’d bought a mask. How it ended up under his bed and not elsewhere--a donation bin, perhaps--he had no idea. He touched the rough paint, the flecks lifting up and speckling his fingers, and a splinter lodged itself in the pad of his ring finger. He stuck it in his mouth, drawing a complete blank. 

It must be Bisky’s, then. Wishful thinking, but he tossed the mask under a couple shirts to protect it against bumping and jostling during the journey. If it weren’t hers, then it was weird enough to join her collection anyway. 

The splinter came loose, and he gnawed it between his teeth. He zipped up his bag, scrunched up his eyebrows, the cleft of the mask’s lips tugging a cord of memory, thin and clear-- _when had he…?_

Nah. He shook his head. It was nothing.

  
  
  
  


Killua met Bisky the summer that he turned nine. 

Having recently acquired a house in the rural countryside, she claimed the thing was in the dumps, and his dad, being ever the shoe-kisser to his higher-ups, had elected his hard-earned freedom from school for a few weeks of penniless labor under the unforgiving sun. 

The car ride there was quiet. Killua petulantly slumped in the passenger seat of his dad’s sleek black car and ignored the awkwardness sliding down his back like sweat. He kicked his feet up, leaving rubber scuffs on the dashboard with his shoes, and turned his nose up at his dad’s entreaties to _at least_ be civil to Miss Biscuit Kreuger, _please?_

“It’s just for the summer,” his dad said.

Killua pushed out his lower lip--summer was a _lifetime_ , he wanted to say, but his dad was boring holes into the side of his head, and he had already lost this battle.

Rice paddies and green fields of adolescent crops flew past the window. The tires trundled over scantily paved roads, and the satellite radio cut out an hour back. The day they arrived was terribly bland: overcast clouds, humidity so thick he could wear it as a jacket, and a dusty smell rising from the earth signaling the first rains after the dry season. Stepping out of the car, he saw a corpse of a house wilting over its eaves, a stern woman perched like an eagle on the front steps.

Bisky greeted his dad with business cordial. Handshakes, vapid small talk that made Killua gag, polite titters like they were at a derby or a polo match or wherever there were rich people and horses and ridiculous hats involved. 

He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that his dad did. He was nine and didn’t pay attention to things he didn’t care about. All he knew was that his dad and Bisky were in the same line of work--or used to be. Although Bisky looked not _as old_ as he expected--but definitely old--she had apparently retired early to live the rest of her mortal life in this junkyard. To each their own, he wasn’t one to judge. Out loud. Yet. 

He had _manners_ , okay?

His dad left without preamble. That he didn’t have to endure stilted and misplaced fatherly love a small but deserved blessing. Bisky let out a put-upon sigh. Once she realized she didn’t have to act right in front of the kid, some invisible strings holding up her posture snapped. 

She scanned over him with pursed lips as if realizing she had to babysit another vulnerable human life for three weeks and had no idea how to do it. He’d seen the same look in his brothers time and again when his mom forced them to look after him. Killua glared back like it was a challenge. _Go on_ , he thought, _I dare you._ Nothing is more terrifying than a highly impressionable child.

Bisky cleared her throat. “Well then.” 

She led him a short way into the house, pointing to the kitchen that stepped down into a former mudroom, or a place to kick off one’s shoes after coming in from the backyard. “Dinner’s in the fridge,” she said. “Help yourself.”

She fled up the stairs without another word. Ah, the evasive technique. Milluki was quite good at that one. 

“The kitchen” was an ancient refrigerator, camp stove, and a cardboard box turned table. Putrid yellow light bathed the worn tatami mats when he opened the fridge, and an even worse smell wafted from whatever had died in there a hundred years ago. Rows of plastic-wrapped sandwiches lined the rusted racks. He grabbed one and took it upon himself to tour the house--or what was left of it. 

Numerous buckets and holes mottled the floor--buckets, where rainwater trickled down through the ceiling with steady _plink-plinks,_ and holes where the wood had rotted and caved in. The holes in the floor opened into the crawl space beneath the house where animals inevitably lived. (Usually his morbid curiosity would compel him to look for bones, but he was eating.) The walls were intact, but there were several missing panels of shoji, and the ones that remained were torn and flimsy with waterlog. Overgrowth crawled toward the raised floor and veranda as if seeking shelter, and there was a garden beyond populated entirely with weeds and twisting vines. Killua laughed bitterly to himself. Whatever favor or goodwill his dad intended on getting from Bisky at the expense of his son, he didn’t want to know

( _Told_ himself he didn’t want to know. Morbid curiosity.)

Bisky coughed behind him. She held a futon in her arms, then set it on the ground as if he were a wild animal. Bidding a soft goodnight, she was gone.

Killua brushed his teeth and spit into the grass. As he spread out his futon and laid down, he heard skittering and scratching in the thatch roof above his head and the constant drone of cicadas, which was louder than ever with thin to no walls separating him from the outside. A few lights flickered from the small village at the base of the hillside, marking the trough of a huge wave of trees that shored up the side of the mountain. The forest was nothing but an evergreen smear at night.

  
  
  
  


The next morning, he woke to Bisky standing over him. She threw a pair of gloves at his face and another plastic-wrapped sandwich. She toted around big, clunky boots and sat down on the veranda to strap them on. It wasn’t even five in the morning. Blue dawn was breaking over the mountains. 

“Garden,” Bisky said, more as an afterthought, that perhaps Killua would like a hint as to what she wanted him to do while he was still half-dead with sleep. He groggily put on clothes that he hadn’t slept in--the corner of the house had the graceful miracle of privacy--and watched her work as he ate breakfast. 

She hacked furiously at weeds with a hoe, doing little more than chopping dirt. In the fifteen, maybe twenty minutes it took for Killua to eat and get ready, she made hardly any progress. Not that he could do better--not that he’d try anyway.

He wiped his hands and picked up a similar tool that leaned on the side of the house. He lifted the hoe, let it wedge into the dirt with a metallic _shick_ , and pushed and pushed.

“Um, Kill--Killua.”

Bisky had her crossed hands tentatively propped up on her hoe, eyes glued to a particularly damnable weed amongst the infestation. 

“You’re supposed to pull...like this.”

She gave a modest demonstration, glancing at him briefly, and once she was sure he understood, continued to toil in ascetic silence, working toward one end of the garden and he the other.

They both had no idea what they were doing. That much was apparent. Mutual products of a callus-less, silver spoon life in the shade. But Killua refused to give into kinship. _Especially_ to old women who wore visors. 

That first day, the sun came out with a vengeance. It baked the earth into clay, sent his bones into early rigor mortis--they simply refused to move--and Bisky called it quits. She threw down her hoe, waving her arms in defeat. She fanned her face with her gloves, and as Killua drew toward the house, she winced through her teeth.

“Oh, kid, your neck…”

Thinking there was a bug hitching a ride, Killua slapped his hand over his nape--and never regretted anything faster. 

His sunburned skin smarted, pain zinging all the way to his fingertips. Bisky pushed a plastic, lukewarm water bottle into his hands and hopped into the house. He cupped water over his neck, letting it dribble down his cheeks to his chin, cooling his equally burned face. Bisky returned with a coin purse embroidered with tacky flowers. 

“There's a clinic in town with a pharmacy. Take the bike out front.”

She seemed frantic for his sake, which irritated him more than the sunburn. He crisped up like a newborn, whatever, but it wasn’t bad. She ushered him to a rust bucket of a bike with a tattered basket between the handlebars. He tested the brakes--not passing any sane safety measures for sure, but they worked; the chain slipped a couple times, but it caught with a couple squealing turns of the wheels. Bisky pointed vaguely down the hill, and Killua rode.

The rush of wind whisked away the heat fatigue pressing down on him like a thumb to a bug. The fast air cooled the sweat on his skin and the chill sunk to his bones and he laughed. He stuck an arm out to feel the wind weaving through his fingers, standing up from the pedals, light and brisk as if rinsed in a stream.

But his short trance ended in a snap. A hairpin turn in the road, too sharp, too late. He squeezed the brakes and they hissed, the smell of burnt rubber assaulting his nose as the brake pad wore thin. He skidded to a stop, the frame of the bike groaning as all the pressure lifted from its joints like an old dog flopping to the floor, and Killua leapt off it for fear of the whole thing falling apart. He breathed heavily, adrenaline petering off and leaving his veins starved and tired. 

He looked up. He was at the edge of a deep expanse of forest. Hefty trees skewered the heady sky, huddled together like slats on a fence, blocking everything not within a few yards of sight--like they were hiding something. There was a faint path, marked only a stone lantern blanketed in moss and lichen. 

It didn’t go very far. He walked only a short distance before it faded into ferns and underbrush, but the surrounding trees parted a winding yet traversable course; it was as if the path had been formed by giant hands nudging between trunks, and not human feet trying to find their way. Sparse sunlight came through the high canopy and dappled the ground. He followed the bright freckles in the dirt and became mildly aware that he was losing his sense of direction. Whoever had deemed to put something at the end of this winding path must have either been extremely dull, or they didn’t want just any wandering traveler discovering _X_ -marks-the-spot. 

And there, ahead, the trees opened around a clearing. A shining spotlight illuminated a stone arch and dais--ugh, _finally_ , he’d been walking _forever_ \--but he realized that was all there was. A rope hung from the arch, decorated with shide that was shortened by bugs and animals chewing away at the ends for an untold number of years. They were the remnants of a shrine. 

Killua approached it slowly; he had forgotten the customs, his family so rarely went to shrines, and if he ever found himself at one he tended to steer clear and no--no way he was _anxious_ about this. This one had seen better days, clearly, but the weight of something hallowed congealed the air in his lungs, pressed like fingers into his arms and throat. It wasn’t wholly unpleasant, but it felt...not right, being there. 

In the middle of the dais was a neat pile of groundnuts, dirty coins, rocks, and shards of glass. 

“It’s been a long time since anyone has come to pay their respects.”

Killua whipped his head around. On the other side of the dais, appearing out of nowhere--a boy, a teenager--sitting cross-legged, chin propped up on a fist. Instead of a face Killua’s eyes met a mask.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” the boy said, low and serious, “unless you have something to offer.” 

“ _Offer_?” Killua looked at the pile of miscellaneous junk. “Those are offerings?” He slapped his shorts’ pockets for Bisky’s ugly little coin purse, fumbling with the clasp.

The boy cackled wildly. Killua squinted at him.

“ _What_.”

“I’m just _kidding_. You shoulda seen your face! All like--”

He made an impression. Probably. Killua bit down on his tongue and the sudden redness in his cheeks to go away. 

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m Gon,” he said in response. 

Killua crossed his arms and huffed. Irritation bloomed hot in his chest. “Killua,” he replied through his teeth. “Any particular reason you’re camped out here like a creep?”

“I live here,” Gon said simply, as easily as he would say that the sky is blue.

Killua furrowed his eyebrows. “No you don’t.”

“I do.”

“Prove it.”

The boy rose to his feet, and all he did was laugh. He wore strange clothing: loose pants the color of the forest and a lighter green top with narrow sleeves. The mask over his face was white with angular lines of red and black paint depicting a kitsune, or fox spirit. His footsteps were quiet. 

“How did Killua get here anyway?” Gon asked.

He bristled. “I’m not an _idiot_.”

“I guess not, but...it’s been a long time.”

“You said that.”

Gon nodded sagely. “Killua must be special, then.”

His eye twitched. The third-person thing struck him as odd, but it ranked fairly low on his current running list. Number one was the mask, he thought. Number two was the low, burble of sound like running water, a chorus of hushed voices, just barely discernible. 

They should’ve been alone. He had a ridiculous, creeping feeling that they weren’t.

“Look, I didn’t mean to intrude, or anything,” Killua said. 

“Intrude?” Gon said, tilting his head like a curious dog. The mask panned back and forth as if he were scanning the clearing, though Killua didn’t see eye slits in the mask. Or any visible company. He shivered. 

Gon continued: “Maybe, I’d have to ask, but I don’t think so. After all, you made this shrine, your kind.”

“My kind?” Killua returned dubiously.

Gon raised his hands, let them drop, his tone frank. Duh. _Obviously_.

“Humans,” he said.

Killua must be imagining this. Nothing so overtly weird would just _happen_ to him in broad daylight on a--what was today? Tuesday? He rubbed at his eyes, but Gon was still there. A masked stranger in the middle of the woods speaking the same ordinary language as he, but completely incongruous with normal--twisting his words into backward riddles that mimicked everyday speech. 

Gon put his hand to his chin. “Unless you’re--no, you’re human. I’d be able to tell if you weren’t.” 

He raised his head to the canopy above. A hint of topography marked an otherwise covered face: a cheekbone, a jawline disappearing into the edge of the mask. His skin shifted. Killua didn’t know if he would be more unnerved if the mask were fused to bone, or if there were a flesh and blood person under there completely out of their wits. There was no distinction between him and Gon. He was--He was human. He had to be.

“I...I should go,” Killua said, backing away. “It’s getting dark.”

Gon nodded. “I’ll walk with you.”

“No! No, I-I’m okay, I got here fine enough myself.”

Gon halted in place. He pulled back and retreated upon seeing that-- _thinking_ that Killua was scared, because he wasn’t, it was just--Bisky would be pissed off already. Yeah.

“Are you sure?” Gon asked softly. “The forest...It’s not what you think.”

Killua ignored that. “Totally sure.”

He walked backward until he knew Gon would stay, then turned heel and ran. He ran for a long time, not even a hint of a path in sight, yet he ran until the sun waned into nothing. He focused on his breathing, putting a stopper on his brain effusing unnecessary questions. There was nothing extraordinary about any of this. At all. 

He stopped running and rested his hands on his knees. He had no idea where he was, which wasn’t exactly new. He hadn’t gone too far into the forest, but he’d quickly lost the direction of the village; and the sun, sitting high in the early afternoon when he arrived, had slipped from its zenith in no time. So many things glared at him as _wrong_ , flashing bright and silver from still, predictable sands. 

Besides the drone of inexplicable noise--he would _not_ call them voices--the forest was otherwise silent. But his instincts raised the hair on the back of his neck, and there was Gon.

“Are you lost?” he asked.

Killua’s frustration came to a head. He lunged, poised to shove the older boy. Gon inhaled sharply, dodging out of the way as if he’d pulled an actual weapon. He swallowed thickly, drawing in a slower breath and exhaling it in a laugh. 

“ _Don’t_ \--sneak up on me like that,” Killua wheezed, his throat strangled with fear. 

“I was gonna say you’re almost there. Then you went the wrong way.”

“I _didn’t_ go the wrong way, I’ve been going straight this entire time. A-And what was that for?” He gestured vaguely at Gon, who had lost several degrees of his innate enthusiasm, standing with his arms pinned to his sides an awkward distance away. Killua scoffed. “It wasn’t like I was gonna _hurt_ you.”

Gon mumbled something under his breath. He stalked off, presumably to show Killua the way, and Killua reluctantly followed. Some twists and turns later, the canopy receded and revealed a sky full of stars. His bike lay in a heap where he’d left it.

“I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” Gon said quietly. He picked up Killua’s bike, flipped out the kickstand. “But I can’t be touched.”

Killua mounted the bike. It was a wonder the thing still held him up. He tested the brakes again. 

He paused, looked around, but there was no sign of Gon. The forest swayed, yawning like an open chasm, a beast with huge lungs taking in slow, sleepy breaths. Killua shook his head and rode his bike up the hill. 

Bisky chewed him a new one when he returned. She waved a landline in his face, agonizing over the phone call she would _have_ to have had with his father if he had been gone another single, _solitary_ minute; she spluttered with indignance, “Oh, you--I can’t--I almost-- _Lost!_ On the first day!”

She made him sit at the cardboard dinner table and eat cold rice out of an empty yogurt cup. She drummed her fingers, raising Killua’s hackles like an annoyed cat until he snapped. 

“I’m _sorry_ , okay?”

Bisky sighed and scrubbed her face. “It’s--fine. It’s fine. Just...tell me where you were. And be honest.”

He believed in her powers of deduction. His own house was bigger than the village. But still he answered, “The forest.”

She nodded, her face not changing in the slightest. She already knew. “I don’t want you going there,” she said.

Killua chewed slowly. He didn’t want to fight on this. “Okay.”

Satisfied, she vacated the kitchen. She padded around upstairs, floorboards creaking, until it stopped, leaving only the raucous chirping of cicadas. 

He was glad Bisky didn’t call his dad. He didn’t know why, particularly. She was nicer than he thought she’d be. Bearable. More bearable than his family, than being at home. Maybe that was it--but sleep softened his bones, and he started to doze off.

He’d tell Bisky that he lost her purse tomorrow. 

  
  
  


It took them the rest of the week to clear out the garden. The rich, black soil had been completely turned over, and blisters stung Killua’s hands from the work. Even with gloves, his technique proved to be abysmal, and Bisky made him wear an ugly hat to prevent getting burned again. They worked tirelessly without so much as a word between them, but it wasn’t like he was any chattier. 

Bisky was strange. She reeked of high society and yet chose to toil in gardens and dig elbow in rusty plumbing--the leaks coming from the ceiling weren’t rainwater, unfortunately--and in quiet observation, Killua noticed she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. But she was trying. Which was weird. (He wouldn’t tell it to her face because she might enjoy the comparison, but she wasn’t as insufferable as his dad’s other stuffy, obnoxious colleagues that he’d had the displeasure of meeting at similarly stuffy gatherings.) 

She was also stunningly awkward. He had to show her how to hook up the hose to the side of the house. 

She had left for town a while ago, and he saw her marching up the hill. She was hulking two watermelons; they were propped up on her shoulders, and she curled her arms around them like she was flexing. She waddled over to where Killua was sitting and set the fruit down next to him and hefted herself onto the veranda.

“They don’t take card at the fruit stand,” Bisky said, huffing irritably. 

Killua snorted.

“How was I supposed to know?” She shifted uncomfortably. “Yesterday at the store I asked if they had this tea, very green, fancy name and all-- _gyokuro_ , jade dew, something or other--”

“Uh-huh.”

She waved her hand, making a dismissive sound. “And they said ‘ma’am, we don’t have that,’ so I was like, you know that’s fine, what _do_ you have.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Bagged tea, Killua.” Bisky paused. “They had bagged tea.”

“It’s a convenience store.”

She put her head in her hands. “I was so embarrassed I bought it anyway.”

“That must have been awful.”

“If I had my purse, maybe I wouldn't be so embarrassed, sticking out like a sore thumb and all.”

Killua made a face. “That would make it worse.”

Bisky sighed tiredly. She pulled a melon into her lap and hugged it. “How did you lose it anyway?” 

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Mmhhh,” Bisky hummed doubtfully.

“I’m serious. I don’t know.”

More like he didn’t remember, exactly. He had it at the shrine-- _positive_ he had--and Gon didn’t swipe it off him, if he was so privy to not being touched. Truly a mystery. He must have dropped it somewhere. 

“Well.” Bisky got to her feet. “Holler if you want some fruit.”

She toted the watermelons to the kitchen, on the way resetting the arm to her ancient record player with her toe. She only had one record, and Killua listened to it scratch and croon.

He wanted to ask Bisky about the forest and if there was a common tendency for squatters to go insane in there, but the more he tried to pick out details the further his memories receded. His fuzzy recollection of that night was taunting him. Time had seemed to swirl and churn like ocean waves, scrambling his brain, in addition to the things he was _choosing_ to forget, like Gon and his profoundly disconcerting oddities.

Killua groaned, raking his hands through his hair. Some part of him itched to _know_ , but he was also perfectly, _wonderfully_ fine preserving what slim truths he had. He thought he was better off that way.

  
  


It was another year before he heard from Bisky again. His dad extended her invitation to return for the summer, and he accepted. Although this time he took the train alone. A whole year older, and he was past the threshold of “not worth the dust on an expensive black car,” but he didn’t mind it. He crammed himself and his bag into the far corner of the train. The scenery was much the same; he kicked his legs up, which had hit an awkward growth spurt in the year since. They were longer than what he was used to and ached around the knees.

Every passenger had strung off the train one by one like pearls until only he and another old man were left; his brown hat peeked over the back of his seat, the corner of a newspaper visible, and he was there when Killua got off at the village’s train station. A ramshackle wooden shed shielded him from the light drizzle that fell from the slate-colored sky. Killua held his bag over his head and hiked through town. A young-ish man leaned over a porch in the rain, a ribbon of smoke rising from a cigarette. He adjusted his round glasses and waved. Killua looked at him strangely and ducked his head. Right. Everybody knew each other here; Killua was the stranger. He picked up the pace and climbed the familiar hill to Bisky’s house. 

From afar, there glowed a house that was _not_ so familiar. There were no longer any obvious holes in the siding that had been hastily covered in noisy blue tarp when the rain worsened. Bisky always had trouble with the electric wiring, things shorting out left and right, so the fact that he could hear both music and see lights from within was a miracle of technology. He felt like he had to reintroduce himself.

Bisky stood in the doorway, her figure backlit from the inside.

“You got taller,” she commented. 

Killua threw his bag across the room, landing vaguely where he had slept last time. It rolled to a futon that had already been set up, along with a lamp and a faded sleep shirt from a marathon somebody ran in 1991.

“You shrunk,” he replied. 

She ignored that remark and instead excitedly gestured to a pot bubbling on the stovetop, grinning ear to ear.

He gave her an unimpressed look. “Soup?”

“A _working_ stove, you brat. And--and--” She stood on her tiptoes and slid a green ceramic plate from the cupboard, brandishing it proudly. “Actual dishes!”

He could tell the house wasn’t done yet, but it was mostly in shape. The floor was in the middle of being replaced or repaired and the kitchen wasn’t all there yet, even with Bisky’s improvements (although he could hardly call _green plates_ an improvement from no plates); the fridge still smelled, and a part of the wall had been removed to expose plumbing and wiring that were entirely too close to each other. 

“So, I hope you don’t mind,” Bisky said, stirring the pot of soup on the _working_ stove. “My cousin is in town to help with the floor. He’ll be staying for dinner.”

Killua shrugged. “Okay.”

“He has a heart of gold--really, he does. So be nice.”

“I’m always nice.”

There was knocking at the front door. Bisky wiped off her hands and glared at him. “ _Be nice_.”

He surrendered his hands at the same time she whisked to the door and greeted the mountain that had suddenly found itself indoors. Bisky’s cousin rubbed his hands and huffed air over them like a fire bellow to warm them up. He hunched over considerably to allow clearance to the top of his head, his arms and neck the width of tree trunks. The guy was _huge_. 

Bisky jumped on her toes to take away his jacket, her speech littered with bits of an unfamiliar, rasping language. Her cousin lumbered over to the kitchen table. 

“ _Kilooah_ , yes?” he asked, much softer than--than his _everything else_ would suggest. He had dark brown hair and small eyes buried under thick brows. The color of his irises was the same fuschia-pink as Bisky’s. Other than that somebody in that family had to be lying (but Killua wouldn’t say that). He smiled tightly, nodding.

Bisky shut the closet where she stowed away her cousin’s jacket. “Killua, Hansel, my cousin,” she said, motioning to both of them with her hands.

Hansel bowed his head. Killua bowed back. Sufficiently awkward.

“It’s nice,” Hansel said, “The house. I like it.” 

Bisky turned her nose up. She was awfully pleased with herself and the modest display of food on the table. “Killua helped me clean it up last summer, didn’t you?”

Killua glanced at her. _Do not involve me_.

“Hard work,” Hansel said. He gave a thumbs-up. Killua ducked his head.

Bisky settled at the table. “Oh, and the shed--you remember the shed? The neighbor came up and fixed it for me. Very sweet lady. 

They chatted lightly over dinner and Killua was able to tune them out. The open shouji carried the clean smell of rain-wet earth into the house. Dark tangles of vines sprouted from the garden and there was a cart of potted vines and flowers in the square of light falling from the house--and the cicadas, their ever-persistent drone. Killua breathed in deeply. He missed this place, and shuddered. Ew.

“Uncle would love it,” Hansel said. 

Bisky grinned. “You think so? I wasn’t sure...He was always so stubborn...”

Hansel shook his head. “I did not think you would take the house. As a child, you hated--”

“ _Hush_.”

“You hated the forest,” Hansel said, not withholding a teasing smile from his voice. “Big monsters. Too many tails. Too many eyes. Crying to Uncle.”

“Hansel.”

“I forgot how to call it--ghosts, spirits? You and uncle. Always on about spirits. Especially before he...”

Hansel trailed off. Killua would call the look in his eyes wistful, but it was too sad.

A lot of things became clear in that moment. A dead uncle, a newly inherited house, perhaps reluctantly from what he gathered, yada yada yada, but--

“Spirits?” Killua asked.

“ _Killua_ ,” Bisky said. A warning.

“You made a very good case,” Hansel continued. “What was the one about a, ah-- _fuchs_?” 

“ _Enough_ ,” Bisky snarled. An angry red blush crawled up her cheeks, and she crossed her arms. “That was a long time ago. I’m not scared of them anymore.” She stuck an accusing finger in Killua’s face. “Don’t even _think_ about using that against me.”

“What would I do?” he laughed. “Put a sheet over my head? I don’t believe in spirits anyway. You’re safe.” 

Hansel found this very funny, erupting with laughter and thunderously clapping his hands. Bisky opened her mouth, then closed it. 

It was an odd expression. Clouded. Lips and brows pinched in thought.

“Well, I suppose that’s a relief,” she said.

They finished up dinner. Killua washed the dishes while Hansel shuffled to the closet to pull from his jacket a mysterious green bottle with dark brown liquid. Bisky was overjoyed by this, even as the taste screwed up her face. Killua took that as his cue to leave. 

He grabbed the marathon shirt and his toothbrush, padding to the bathroom. The hallway leading to it was narrow, pictures hung on either wall. Most of it was long scrolls of writing or artwork, a few nameless relatives framed in glass, and one black and white photo at the end. Killua only glanced at it, but the curve of the mountains in the background of the photo caught his eyes: it was the same one outside the house’s walls. 

Bisky and Hansel were in the forefront, albeit decades younger with round, childish faces. A man knelt between them, with scraggly hair and small eyes, arms slung around both of them. Her uncle and cousin smiled at the camera, but Bisky’s mouth slanted into a frown. She squinted angrily in the bright sun and had her tongue sticking out, perhaps at the camera man. But she was looking at something in the far corner of the shot--something out of frame, unseen. Bisky and Hansel laughed uproariously from the other room. 

In the smallest hours of morning, Killua woke to them bumping about the room, Hansel draped over Bisky’s shoulder as they scuffled through the door--“ _right foot, Hansel,_ rechter fu-- _there you go, come on_.” He could hear them chanting a song in that same guttural language they both spoke, getting quieter the farther they descended the hill.

Dawn had risen the next time he struggled into consciousness. Bisky had her head in her hands, face hung over a steaming cup of tea. She was dipping a tea bag into the water, long, frizzy strands of blonde hair sticking out of her ponytail like a scarecrow with clumps of hay falling out.

Killua tried not to laugh. “Rough night?”

Bisky ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. “ _Shhhh_ -hut up. Shut up.”

“Where did Hansel go?” Killua asked.

“He’s staying at the hostel in town--the Siberias run it.” Bisky lifted her tea and yawned. “Strange people. Hospitable, but strange.”

Killua shook his head. “He could’ve slept here.”

“Believe me, I offered,” she sighed. “He lived with our uncle for some time before he died. Wasn’t all there toward the end, from what I hear. He’s not ready, I guess.”

Killua flicked his eyes upwards, the only bedroom in the house upstairs. Yikes. 

“That reminds me, he’ll be back soon to fix the floor, and you, young spritely one, need to do me a favor.”

“Since when do I _need_ \--”

“I’m out of painkillers, and they’re-- _you_ …” Bisky paused. “You are giving me a headache.”

Killua furrowed his brow. “Are you sure you’re not just decaying? I haven’t said anything yet.”

Bisky blinked, rather unimpressed. Dark circles hung under eyes.

“...Fine,” he relented. “I’ll go,” 

“It’s the building that looks like a log cabin,” Bisky supplied.

He kicked out of his blankets. “I know the one.”

It was hard to miss. Every other building in town had low walls and either a high, slanted thatch roof, or one that sloped down and flared at the end. The building was the oldest in town with a shallow roof; rocks pinned down the weathered shingles, the walls sporting small windows fogged with age. Moss and ivy crawled up and down the siding, and the one twenty-first century feature was in the form of a neon sign buzzing over the stairs.

Inside, there was an employee at the front desk: a freshly post-pubescent kid trying and failing to grow a proper beard. Killua had seen him the first day, and in his rush to get out of the rain thought he was a local, when that clearly wasn’t the case. He wore a _suit_ , and when Killua approached the desk, he brutally fumbled a stack of papers. 

A man with freaky eyebrows barked at him, and, noticing Killua, lowered his voice and spoke gruffly to his employee. He took the eyebrow-man’s instruction, gathered the fallen documents and photos in a flurry, and dropped them over the counter. There was a nametag pinned to his suit. _Leorio._ He sniffed, swiping at his nose. 

“Smooth,” Killua deadpanned.

Leorio’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

“I need painkillers.”

He pulled an annoyed sneer, scanning him up and down. Deciding that Killua was a legit customer, he dug around beneath the counter. “Aspirin or ibuprofen?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Killua said.

“Uh, _does too_ ,” Leorio replied, _infuriatingly_ pompous. “We give over the counter stuff for free, so we don’t want people abusing this stuff; one is more effective, but if they use aspirin a lot, as opposed to ibuprofen--”

Killua had started to mock him by mouthing his words, and Leorio stopped to glare at him. “Yeah, yeah, didn’t I see you smoking earlier?” Killua asked. “Seems counterintuitive if you’re a pharmacist.”

“ _Apprentice_ pharmacist, _future_ doctor.” Leorio hinged forward to lower to Killua’s level, which was considerably shorter than his, and if Killua could just _stick his fingers in his eyes_ \--

“And that’s none of your business,” Leorio said.

Killua crossed his arms. “Is taking your own advice not part of the job description?”

Leorio inhaled sharply. He clenched his jaw. A muscle jumped his cheek. “Do you want drugs or not, kid? Chronic or a headache.”

“Hangover,” Killua replied gruffly.

“Close enough.

He grabbed a small white bottle of pills, held them out. Killua tried to take them. He pulled them back, rattling them like he was a dog.

Leorio grinned smugly. “Apologize first.”

Killua squeezed his hands into fists. Something--maybe it was the suit in eighty-degree heat--told him that he could definitely outrun him. Leorio realized it a split second too slow before Killua snatched the bottle and booked it out of the clinic. His shouts faded as he tore through town.

Bisky and Hansel were in the yard sanding and staining floorboards. She was wearing her ugly visor again, and he _supposed_ there was a use to it as it kept the sun out of her bloodshot eyes. She placed two pills on her tongue, chugged a plastic water bottle, and thanked him. Hansel greeted Killua politely. Other than that they paid him no mind as they went back to work.

  
  
  
  


Killua left with a flimsy excuse about taking a walk and easily found the shrine again, the forest path guiding him like it knew who he was. At first, it was just the dais, the arch, the paper shide swaying in a non-existent breeze. He hadn’t thought that Gon made a lot of noise--he didn’t, but without his presence, an eerie quiet settled over the clearing. The pile of offerings had grown since the last he’d seen it with the addition of metal screws, shiny buttons, and a small patch of chicken wire. 

“Killua?”

He turned to the sound of Gon’s voice. He emerged slowly from a bank of trees. 

For a moment, he was hunched over, head down, seemingly unsure if it was really him. His posture straightened up when he realized it was true; he had his mask fixed over his face, but even without features, he grinned with the line of his shoulders and spine as he loped closer to Killua. The dais was tall enough for him to rest his chin on his folded arms.

“ _You disappeared on me_ ,” he whined. “I thought you were gone for good!”

Killua crouched low, but far enough that he wouldn’t brush Gon on accident--if he was still on about not being touched. Everything else about him was in place; down to his height and clothes and dirt under his nails, nothing had changed. He hadn’t thought roughing it in the woods would be a stable living.

“I was bored,” Killua said. It felt a little underwhelming, phrasing his curiosity as a mere whim when it had been churning in his gut for a year. It was only a matter of time before he ended up here again. But Gon didn’t have to know that.

“You’re lucky I want to hang out with a creep like you,” Killua said.

Gon laughed--no offense taken, apparently.

“It’s either you or this asshole who works at the pharmacy,” he continued. “Razor-thin pickings out here.”

“Then Killua and I can be friends,” Gon said. 

Killua swallowed thickly. He rapped his knuckle on the forehead of Gon’s mask, the hollow knocking sound echoing out into the clearing. The kitsune painted and etched into the mask stared at him in unfeeling black and red lines. 

Once or twice his mom had dragged him to kabuki theaters to watch actors flounce around the stage in similar masks and costumes. The entire affair was too pretentious; his mom wore her white silk gloves and toted around tiny gold glasses on a stick and Killua had to wear nice clothes and he never paid attention anyway. 

He didn’t believe in spirits. It was just a mask.

“Killua?”

He snapped out of his thoughts. All of a sudden, he had a horrific need to know what was underneath. 

Killua stabbed his hands toward Gon’s face, securing his fingers over the minuscule edge of wood and pulled. A leather cord came up and over his head, and he--he was-- 

“You’re... _normal_ ,” Killua said.

Gon blinked with wide, amber eyes. He was frozen in place, holding his breath. He had plain features, thin eyebrows, a few freckles. Disappointing. Not even an extra pair of eyes or a cool birthmark. He wasn’t any older than sixteen or seventeen, probably.

“Yes, I’m _normal_. Jeez. The mask was a gift,” Gon said.

“But...if you’re not human,” Killua said, faintly remembering his cryptic language, “then what are you, some kind of ghost? I can’t touch you or else I’ll go right through, is that it?”

Gon furrowed his brow. “Huh. I never thought of that.” He poked his arm. “No, I don’t think so.”

“That was rhetorical.”

“Ghosts are dead,” Gon said, ignoring him. “I’m not dead, I can tell you that. It _sounds_ cool. Like, floating through stuff...and stuff. What do ghosts do again?”

“Forget it,” Killua mumbled, scrubbing his face. “Forget I said anything.”

“No, no, I think you might be onto something.”

Killua scanned Gon’s strictly average, human features. Nothing at all denoted otherworldliness. He thought he was special, though his reasons were unclear even to himself.

“Ghosts are slightly off-center humans,” Killua said. “Dead but not quite. They’re living, in a way, just where they don’t belong.”

Gon considered this, nodding sagely. “I’ll take ‘not quite.’ I’m a ghost, then.”

“You sound happy about that. Problem solved?”

He worried his lip with his teeth. His eyes glassed over in thought; Killua followed his line of sight and over his shoulder at tall stalks of bamboo. The forest as calm as ever. 

“Yeah,” Gon said, breaking off his reverie and shaking his head. “Problem solved.”

Killua hummed and laid on his back. For awhile, Gon talked his ear off about nothing in particular--he seemed to really like plants, Killua gathered that much--and Killua distractedly ran his hands over Gon’s mask. 

It was smooth, but a few telltale signs of age marred the surface: nicks, scratches, the cord flimsy with wear. There used to be an engraving on the inside of the fox’s chin, but it was so faded Killua couldn’t read it. 

  
  
  
  


Alluka was a couple months shy of ten years old when she acquired the capacity to know what she wanted and how to be annoying about it--because _Killua_ got to go every summer and it just wasn’t _fair_ that she couldn’t either. She had been whining for days. Someone had to give, and Killua knew it wasn’t going to be her. 

Bisky took to her immediately. All traces of Alluka’s bratty behavior dissolved, and she was back to her usual pleasant self, and it wasn’t a second of hesitation before Bisky was fussing over Alluka’s clothes and hair. Alluka adored the attention. She so rarely got any at home. 

However, she quickly learned that Bisky was old and did a bunch of old person stuff all day and then fell asleep at eight on a good night. Killua had to think of something to keep her from getting antsy and gripey, and there were only so many rocks they could throw at the clinic before the guy with eyebrows got mad. (It wasn’t like he was aiming at _him_.)

His options dwindled, and soon he was left only with the forest. Now, his judgement fell just short of sound, because the forest wasn’t exactly _fun_ , per se. But Alluka skipped happily down the path. 

She had her head on a swivel, tracking a bird or bug or something. She was wordlessly awestruck by the forest, and yeah, he supposed it was pretty sometimes, but nothing he hadn’t seen before. They lived on a mountain fairly similar to this one, after all. 

Alluka spotted a clutch of wildflowers and knelt down to pluck them from the grass. She was twisting them into a chain when Killua joined her. While he had his head down, trying to twist flower stems together and failing miserably, she had wandered away. Presumably nearby to another bed of flowers; she had a flighty attention span that took her from here to there and back again. Killua didn’t think much of it. 

His flower stems snapped, and his meager chain fell apart. He held a palmful of dismembered white and pink clovers. Frowning, he called out, “Hey, Alluka, can you show me…”

He scanned the corner of the forest he found himself in. No trace of his sister. He listened closely for shuffling clothing, underbrush breaking under footfalls. 

The forest as calm as ever, but a nearly imperceptible undercurrent of energy raised the hair on the back of his neck and a scalding panic squeezed his ribcage. The ridiculous feeling that he’d had the first day reared its head. 

They weren’t alone. 

“Alluka!” 

He checked around identical trees, identical turns. He kept calling her name, getting farther and farther away from the flowers. This stupid, infuriating Bermuda Triangle of a forest and he was going to lose his sister and he’d have to tell Bisky and she’d be so, _so_ mad--

He stumbled over an exposed root, narrowly saving himself from face planting into dirt. He scraped his palms to shit on the tree that broke his fall. 

Alluka. In the middle of a clearing. She had her arm up, fingers spread wide.

“...Alluka…?”

She turned her head, otherwise unmoving.

“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice was thin, exasperated. 

“Don’t you see her?” Alluka asked.

“See _what_?”

She pursed her lips, attention fixed to something unseen.

“Look harder,” she said. “Believe you can.”

“Look at _what_!”

Alluka shot him a hard glare. “Just do it.”

At length, he screwed his eyes shut, slowed his breathing, let himself mourn his eleven years of an uninteresting life. Counted to ten, counted backwards. Did it again. 

When he opened his eyes, she was there, plain as day. A creature half the height of the surrounding trees, eight copper-furred tails with white tips. She was bending her neck so Alluka could pet her forehead. It was a fox, he realized--or, more accurately, a kitsune, a spirit.

She lifted her head, regarded Killua with deep brown eyes. 

“Don’t be afraid,” the kitsune said. “You’re safe here.”

The kitsune was twenty feet tall, easy, and could bowl them over with a swipe of her tails; she spoke, deep and reverberating, and he could feel it like thick smoke suffused through the air: it was true, she wished them no ill will.

Another, not so peaceful voice called out from the forest, “Mito!” Killua heard the distinct sounds of branches _thwacking_ a body tumbling through trees. 

Gon scrambled into the clearing, face red from running. He gasped, “There you are! He’s back again, did you hear? Killua’s--Oh.” Gon met Killua’s eyes, and his mouth clicked shut. “You _have_ met. Killua, Mito; Mito, Killua. Neat, huh?” he said, offhand. 

Neat. Killua didn’t know who he was talking to, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be as startling as an ancient creature the size of a house with eight tails. 

Alluka, all the while, was serenely petting her fur. “You’re very soft.” 

Mito blinked slowly. “Thank you, child. And who might you be?”

“Alluka,” she said simply.

“My sister,” Killua added.

“Sister indeed.” Mito lowered her huge body to the ground, tucking her limbs under herself. “We’ve all gathered for your arrival. Gon insisted that it be a surprise, of sorts, but it seems you beat him to it.”

Gon sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. “Killua never said anything before, so I wasn’t sure if you could see all of us. But now we don’t have to worry about that right?”

“‘All?’” Killua asked weakly. Although he had heard it getting louder--it had drawn him here, he realized, helping him find Alluka at its center--the faint chorus of voices whispering in the trees. 

At first he thought they were birds or bugs. What Alluka had been looking at before. They were small, perched on branches, the whites of their eyes flashing from the gloom. Some were larger, slinking into the clearing with their legs or amorphous limbs. 

Killua grabbed Alluka’s shoulders, steadying himself. “Have they…Have they been here the whole time?”

“Not everyone can see spirits,” Gon said. “The younger you are, the more likely.”

“But I can see you. I always have.”

“I’m not a spirit, Killua, not like they are.”

Killua clenched his jaw in frustration. Anger warmed his blood. Some of the spirits blinked out of his vision. Alluka gathered up his hand and squeezed gently.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t push yourself to understand.”

He decided to put a pin in his minor freakout. He’d deal with it later. Maybe. For now, he’d try to follow Alluka in stride and at least _pretend_ to take this well. 

“I’m good,” he said. 

Gon’s eyebrows twitched downward--he didn’t believe him either--but he smiled anyway. Several spirits rested on the top of his head and shoulders, or clung to his legs like toddlers. He approached Killua with an otter-like spirit balancing on his palms. “Heiko would like to say something.”

Killua stared doubtfully at Gon, then at the otter. Heiko had blue fur and red eyes that avoided Killua’s. Gon nodded for the otter to continue. 

Heiko pulled a blue coin purse with embroidered flowers from behind its back. In the course of two years, the purse had been dragged countless times through the dirt. Its edges were frayed, a large hole was torn out of the bottom; unsurprisingly, when Killua took the purse, the coins were gone. He could guess where they went. 

“I-I’m the one who stole your purse,” Heiko said. The otter bowed. “I’m sorry.”

“Uh...No big deal,” Killua replied as nonchalantly as he could to a talking otter. 

The otter scrunched up its nose, baring its pointy white teeth-- _a smile, hopefully?_ \--“I felt so bad. I would’ve brought it back myself, but...we can’t leave the forest. I was worried it would never get back to you.”

Killua glanced at Gon. Gon shrugged. “It’s complicated,” he said.

Wonderful. Another mystery. 

“Killua.”

Mito addressed him, speaking his name slowly. She swept her tail around her body, upsetting the spirits that snoozed in her fur. She flicked her ears. 

“You know about...Gon’s condition, yes?”

“I do,” Killua replied.

“Good. Then you must know, we’re awfully protective of him.”

Gon’s ears reddened. “ _Mitooo_.” 

“Would you have me say otherwise?”

The spirits clamored over each other, filling the clearing with raucous noise. They were agreeing with Mito. Killua noticed how many spirits floated around Gon, tugging his hair, pulling at his cheeks--they were messing with him like a sibling would. They were like family.

They pitched stories of Gon’s childhood. His life was recounted in bits and pieces from every direction. Some part of Killua believed that Gon was simply born a teenager, that he never aged, as inexplicable as the rest of the spirits. Since they met, Gon hasn’t changed once. But the spirits spoke of his small hands and chubby cheeks, missing teeth and blemishes. He was more human than he perhaps led on. 

Then, in the midst of spirits, one piped up loud and clear: “We wouldn’t know what to do if he disappeared forever!”

Killua thought nothing of it--the phrasing was a little weird, but he was petting a blue-furred otter that talked; however, Gon’s cheeks, deeply red from all the attention, were suddenly sapped of color. He looked to Killua with wide eyes, a sickly pallor to his skin. 

“Disappear forever?” Killua said with forced lightness. Surely it was an exaggeration.

The rest of the spirits, noticing Gon’s distress, quieted down. Mito picked her head up. 

“I was under the impression that you knew,” Mito said. “You told us you understand.”

Gon’s mouth bobbed open like a fish. “Listen, I--”

“What does she mean?” Killua demanded.

Alluka shrunk into Killua’s side. “What’s going on?”

“I never meant--You would’ve never be--”

“ _Gon_.”

He wilted. The spirits that had been nearby fled into the trees, and the forest returned to its unnatural quietude and emptiness as if a shadow of a storm were passing overhead. Mito watched, nose turned up. Her silence prodded him into answering for himself. 

“I-I can’t be touched, you know that part,” Gon said, fidgeting with his hands. “But if I’m touched, I’ll disappear forever, like they said--” He put his fingers together, opened them-- 

“ _Poof_. Gone.”

Gon laughed nervously and scratched the back of his neck, like he had said nothing more than trivial nonsense. The watchful audience of spirits whittled into Killua’s skin with their eyes, scraping his nerves until he was numb. He hardly felt Alluka shaking him. Gon waved in front of his vision, rippling like a heat signature. Killua couldn’t stand to be around either of them. 

So he ran off. Somewhere. Anywhere. Tripping through the forest, gasping for air that was thin enough to breathe. He made it to the banks of a placid spring, where the oppressive forest canopy opened like a lid to a small scrap of blue sky. There was a moss-covered tree leaning over the surface of the water. Killua rested on its slanted trunk.

For a while, his brain failed to process anything more than passive observation. He tried dispelling a strange wave of vertigo that was making him dizzying--the stupid forest was messing with him, salting his wounds, and his stupid friend keeping something like that from him--but he didn’t know how to deal with...anything, really. He just wasn’t good at that kind of stuff.

He picked up a rock and chucked it in the water. _Ploop_. It didn’t make him feel any better. Damn it.

He heard a twig snap behind him. 

“Go away,” Killua said. 

“Are you mad at me?”

Gon.

“If I say no will you leave me alone?”

“I’m not leaving Killua alone.”

He crunched through fallen leaves. He crouched by the bank, near enough to touch him. But of course he didn’t.

Gon said nothing. Without his constant stream of consciousness, Killua had no idea how to start a conversation with him, even though Gon was allowing him to. 

Killua cleared his throat. “You left Alluka.” 

“Sorry,” Gon said. “She’s with Mito and the others. She said she was fine.”

Killua nodded absently. He picked at his fingernails. 

“And…” Gon started slowly, quietly. “I’m sorry that you had to find out like that.”

He said it genuinely enough. He still wouldn’t look at him, though. But Killua wasn’t doing any better on that front either. For once, he missed the unfeeling mask. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Killua said in a near whisper.

He wished he didn’t sound so... _pathetic_ , so hurt. It made him feel weak, like he had to run from his only friend in the world when that was the last thing he wanted to do. 

“We had just met,” Gon said after a few beats. “I didn’t think you would’ve believed me.”

“But what if I had done it on accident, and, and you just--” Killua made the motions with his fingers--“ _poof_. You didn’t think that was an important tidbit of information?”

“I would have told Killua eventually. But I didn’t think you were ready.”

Killua crossed his arms. “Oh really?”

Gon finally met his eyes. “You did kind of freak out.”

“Shut up.” Killua flushed to his ears. “That’s not fair.” 

“Please don’t be mad at those guys. The spirits. They mean well, they do.”

“I’m not mad at the spirits. And I’m not mad at you, either,” Killua sighed. 

A small grin broke over Gon’s face, and the apprehension dropped from his features into relief. He stood up and brushed dirt from the seat of his pants. He started to dig around in his pockets. 

“What are you doing?” Killua asked.

Gon stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth, squinting in concentration. “Hold on--ah!” 

He pulled a tangled mess of clear string from his pocket: fishing line.

“I can touch spirits just fine, for whatever reason, so I can do this with them, but with you…” Gon straightened out the line and tore a piece in two with his teeth. He held out his little finger.

“A pinky promise,” Killua said blandly.

“Yeah! As like, a reminder. Gimme.”

Gon made a grabby motion with his hand until Killua relented. He did his little ritual, wrapping their fingers with fishing line. 

When the line was up, Gon tied the ends with a knot. “We’ll never keep anything from each other ever again. Deal?”

Killua forced himself to breathe normally, because Gon was testing the hair’s breadth of space between them--such a small, reckless difference that Gon didn’t even blink at. 

“Deal,” Killua said.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a note for those who have watched/read hotarubi and are married to the plot, I do take a couple liberties w some details and such. the movie is only 40 mins long so it was bound to happen
> 
> n e way thx for reading :)


	2. ha

Another year passed, and the next crept along into spring. Alluka had not been sent to his junior high, like he and she both expected, but to a boarding school farther north, farther away from the balmy valleys to the south of their home where Bisky and Gon and the other spirits lived; Alluka had been there for almost a month now. She texted a few times, sent a handwritten letter even fewer. Killua was worried she wouldn’t like it there.

The blue light of his phone shined in his dim room. In the photo Alluka posed with a couple friends: a silver-haired girl with a shiny upper lip and another with dark brown skin and stoic gray eyes.

Their dad probably wouldn’t outright say it, but sending Alluka away made her one less thing to worry about, one less kid to parent. He had a suspicion that Alluka actually enjoying herself and making friends at her new school was an unintended consequence. Or, it worked in a way he hadn’t expected: Alluka would be staying there for the summer, she said in a text, with an apology tacked onto the end. Killua didn’t like that his dad was getting his way, but Alluka was happy. That’s all that mattered.

He closed his phone and rapped his fingernails idly on the black screen. That’s all that mattered and yet something in his chest didn’t feel right. Alluka loved the forest and the spirits and had taken to them more than he had with her higher aptitude of communicating with them. She was eager to return last year, bouncing off the walls until summer break arrived. It’s just, to him it felt a little strange. But--if she didn’t want to go, she didn’t want to go. 

Killua put his phone down and rolled over in his bed. Bisky’s house repairs were done. All she did nowadays was watch daytime television and complain about the heat. There was literally nothing else to do but watch Bisky watch soap operas and hike around the mountain. He’d been to the peak. More than once. Several times, actually. It didn’t get any prettier. And Leorio had the audacity to start medical school, so that took off the one and only person on his ‘To Harass’ list. 

He thought this year he’d skip. Find some other way to get out of the house--maybe a simple labor job that would pay a thirteen-year-old under the table.

As he stared at the ceiling, he remembered last summer, the night before he and Alluka were set to leave. Normally, he’d never stay in the forest past dark, but Gon was adamant about showing him something before they were gone until next year. 

They moved through the tall grass of a meadow deep within the trees. But Gon traversed the forest easily, sometimes leaving Killua in the dust unless he extended a branch and towed him around like a child; he’d been thinking lately, about how vast the forest actually was, certain areas like the shrine the mere shore of a depthless ocean 

Killua watched as the shadows of nightfall shifted over his shirt and sliced between his shoulder blades. Knobs of his spine disappeared under the cloth, as did the smattering of freckles on his neck and shoulders. Killua averted his eyes. 

Gon stopped suddenly. Killua put on the brakes, heart jumping into his throat. Before he could snap at him, Gon whispered, “ _ Watch this _ .” 

He waded farther into the meadow, the grass rustling at his sides. Gon skimmed his hands through the long blades. Killua held his breath.

Rising from their previous slumber like a plume of dust, a flurry of fireflies graced the dusky meadow with a golden glow; an encore of a sunset. Gon extended his arms into the swarm, reaching to touch them. 

Killua hated to think of it, Gon’s potential disappearing. Occasionally he thought, only briefly, if he would go slowly the way many humans did. Gon had a tendency to undermine his distinctly human traits; he was surrounded by distinctly  _ inhuman _ things, so he most likely didn’t see them the same way Killua did. Sometimes Gon laughed so hard he cried, and he toted around cat spirits around like spoiled little pets, and he did disgusting things like pick his nose and time how long his burps echoed. 

And sometimes the line blurred. He could pick up on sounds and smells from impossible distances and had a sixth sense for reading the forest, reading traces of history. Once while they explored, he lingered over a spot on the forest floor where the grass grew thick and green, and flowers and mushrooms sprouted in abundance. Gon had a faraway look in his eyes, and when Killua asked him what was wrong, he just shook his head, and they moved on.

Killua wondered if a human death wouldn’t suit him. If his life would blink and pulse and cease like a firefly’s come sunlight. And instead of endless night it was day, where fireflies could not exist.

Killua stopped thinking before he could make himself any more nauseous. Gon looked over his shoulder, beckoning him into the grass with a flick of his chin. 

His hands were cupped, and when Killua was close enough he opened them, showing him two fireflies crawling over his palms. They took flight, drawing lazy arcs through the air. Gon grinned as they flew away, the light from the bugs casting shadows over his dimples and setting his eyes to fire. The bugs hung around him in gentle shrouds. Silent, golden bells. 

  
  
  
  


Killua would never get used to Mito. 

Her wise yet kind aura conflicted with his primal fear to run away from a very large animal with very large teeth and claws. When she spoke, her chest rumbled like thunder in the distance, stormy winds tearing through the trees, crashing avalanches and rockslides. A voice that was created before language. In all her majesty as an ancient being, she curled up like a house cat in the sun, barely big enough to fit on the shrine’s dais. 

“This shrine used to be frequented by many,” Mito said. “It’s a shame it’s been reduced to this.”

Killua looked around. It would have been very small, even in its prime. Unless there had been more to the shrine, once upon a time, hidden somewhere in the forest. It seemed that the shrine had once been in the middle of a garden. He could tell, however faintly, that surrounding the clearing there were dips in the earth where spring water used to flow, and a hint of a bridge that had been reduced to two posts buried in the ground. Several crumbling stone structures orbited the dais: lanterns, faceless statues that had weathered countless rainy seasons, and the mossy arch that stood sentinel at the end of the nonexistent path. 

Immediately around the dais were remnants of a wooden building. That was all that was left of the shrine itself. Though, he noticed, it was clean. Their neat pile of offerings tidy in the middle.

“Gon said it’d been a while since anyone came to pray,” Killua said.

Mito hummed, a low, reverberating sound. She rested her head on her paws. “The mountain god watches over this forest. We felt it only right to have a place for them.”

“If it was easier to get to, maybe people would remember where it is and start coming again,” Killua said. “Nothing even points to this shrine being back here.”

Mito’s short laugh only humored him. “A fine suggestion, but this shrine was a victim of time. Forests are steady creatures, but like rivers they tend to change shape with enough patience.”

“Is that supposed to explain how--” Killua moved his hands, trying to conjure an explanation of how the forest fucked with his mind. But he didn’t exactly want to say that word for word.

“Humans so rarely cross our borders,” Mito said. “It has morphed around the conscience of spirits, lost its grip on the laws that govern your existence, as opposed to ours.” She paused. “If that answers your question.”

Killua stammered, “Uh, not--not really. But thanks.”

“Your sister said it best. You’ll end up hurting yourself if you think so hard.” Mito shook her head. “I should tell that to Gon, except he tends to... _ underestimate  _ the amount of thinking that should be involved.”

She considered him for a moment, the weight of her eyes dousing him like he was standing under a waterfall.  _ Hence, you _ , she seemed to say.

Killua twisted his shoelaces. He had intended to see Gon today, but Mito was in his place. Now he was awkwardly fidgeting, and he refused to spit out what he’d been meaning to say. 

“Mito,” he said.

“Hm?”

“How did...How did Gon--How did you find him?”

“Oh, that story.”

“He’s never told me.”

“I wouldn’t expect him to remember it. He was just a baby. He was alone when we found him. And--well, the number of days that transpired from the time he was left was...uncertain. But we knew it was too late.”  __

“He was dead,” Killua said. 

“No, no. On the brink, however. The mountain god--” Mito cut herself off and sighed. “Even now I question their pity. You know the cost of his life.”

“He can’t touch humans.”

“If we had found him sooner, maybe there could’ve been a chance. But I suppose there’s no purpose dwelling on it. As soon as he could walk he toddled after me as if he were my own. He’d always ask why he didn’t look like me--and at that point I hadn’t seen a human for a good hundred years, I had no idea what they were up to--so I gave him his mask and just hoped that he held onto that part of himself.”

Killua smiled to himself. “I think he’s okay.”

“Now, Killua, if I may: why do you ask?”

He took the time to untie and retie his shoes, steadfastly ignoring her until he couldn’t any longer. He swallowed. 

“My sister...” he said. “She’s forgetting.

Mito was quiet for a moment. She spoke slowly, breaking it gently, “Most humans are bound to, so long as they get to be older.”

“But she’s  _ not _ old. She’s only a year younger than I am, a-and she loves this place. She’s ten times better at all this spirit stuff. It doesn’t make sense that she’d forget. Especially now.”

“She simply has no need for spirits anymore. Humans grow out of things quite quickly, don’t they?” Mito said. “Has she completely forgotten? No recollection at all?” 

Killua pictured the conversation in his mind. She had come home briefly before her second year began. He had mentioned Gon and Mito in passing, that they hoped she was well, and she furrowed her brows: “ _ Oh, right, yeah, yeah. Gon and Mito _ .”

“She shouldn’t be forgetting so easily,” he mumbled. “I mean, a couple years. She already has to be reminded.”

“I would hazard to guess that this is troubling you because you’re worried about what it means for you.”

“ _ Of course _ I’m worried--I…”

Killua trailed off. Mito watched him. Waiting. Killua knew very well the type to see right through him--either that, or he was so embarrassingly transparent. 

“Tell me, do you ask after Gon’s circumstances because you intend them for yourself?” 

Killua's eyes burned in his skull. He clenched his teeth and tried to keep the cracks out of his voice but failed anyway: “I can’t--I can’t forget him, Mito. I don’t want to forget him.” 

Mito didn’t respond for a long time. She wrinkled her nose and flicked her tail restlessly. Killua didn’t understand animal-speak, or even understand what she was thinking. She bore down on him with dark eyes that held many lifetimes, and it took him until now to feel so incredibly small in her presence. 

“What you ask, I cannot grant. I’m not a god,” she said, her voice clipped. “Human lives are unique in how short and passionate they are. There is a reason, I know, that you ask this when Gon isn’t here. He would feel the same as I and would regret it if you two shared the same fate.”

Killua trained his eyes to the striations in the stone. Her words weighed heavily on his neck as if he had his head bowed in hollow prayer.

  
  
  
  


Bisky came down with something that summer. Nothing too serious, but she was shut up in her room with the curtains drawn and a wet cloth over her eyes for the majority that he was there. Killua lorded his youth and vigor over her the entire time like always, but ended up having to do all the chores and errands for her. It was almost nostalgic, having something to do. Having a distraction. 

His first stop was the clinic and pharmacy. It had been a year since he’d seen Leorio and eyebrow guy ( _ Zepile _ , he came to know eventually, but wouldn’t ever give him the satisfaction), and, approaching the odd building, he didn’t see either man. A person with blond hair sat under the eaves, their legs dangling over the porch. They had a sketchbook propped up against the wooden railing.

Killua leaned over them. His silhouette shadowed their work. “Whatcha drawing?”

They stopped the light motion of their hand brushing across the page and blinked lazily at Killua with stony eyes. They considered him for a moment, instead of outright telling him to  _ shoo _ . A line appeared between their eyebrows.

“You. You’re that kid,” they said.

Killua balked. He was pretty sure they’d before. “Excuse me?”

They pursed their lips, wavered for a second, and returned to their drawing; Killua caught a glimpse of a half-formed scene of the village. They shaded in the sign of the post office across the road. 

“Leorio’s told me about you. White hair. Yea high.” They motioned about three feet off the ground with their hand.

Killua’s eye twitched. “That would be me.”

“He also said you were, quote, ‘annoying evil devil spawn.’”

“He’s full of shit,” Killua said. “Good to know he doesn’t have any other hobbies.” 

They huffed a short laugh out of their nose. “Kurapika,” they said. 

“Killua.” He sat down on the front steps of the clinic. “You’ve met him, then. Leorio.”

“At school. We’re both from the city, but he told me he’d been interning under some guy in--pardon me--‘butt fuck nowhere.’”

“Butt fuck nowhere,” Killua repeated, weighing the analysis. “Yeah. Apt.”

“I’m supposed to be putting a portfolio together…” Kurapika shook their head. They erased a part of their sketch, flicking away the shavings, and tapped their pencil rapidly on the page. “I thought I’d find some, I don’t know,  _ inspiration _ . But it’s hard to come by from this porch.”

The front door of the clinic opened--“Hey, Kurapika, do you know where I put my... _ you _ .”

Leorio met Killua’s eyes with a nasty glare. He didn’t look pleased to see him, Killua delightfully observed.

“They’re in your coat, left pocket,” Kurapika said.

Leorio frowned, digging around said pocket. “Ah, right, thanks.” He perched his glasses on the tip of his nose. “Now--” Leorio bent over with his hands on his knees as if to speak to the floor-- _ how can I help you, young man? _ ” he said in a mockingly sweet tone.

Killua drove two fingers toward Leorio’s face. He blocked Killua’s attempt to gouge his eyes out with his hand placed perpendicularly to his brow. 

“That only works so many times,” Leorio said.

Killua retracted his arm and scowled. “Bisky called in a prescription this morning.”

“For what?”

“I don’t fucking know. Go get it.”

Leorio sighed, pinching the space between his eyes. He went back into the clinic. Kurapika snickered. 

“He debated coming back to Zepile’s for some time. I wonder why.”

Killua shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s not my fault he’s a dick.”

“Sure. But even so, I see why he did. It’s beautiful here.”

Kurapika lifted their fine features to the mountain tops, to the horizon sketched with trees. The village laid in the basin of a small valley; it was surrounded by forests, ensconcing the terraces and rice paddies and scattering of homes. By summertime, the growing season was just beginning, the verdant hills embellished with wildflowers, the bright sun overhead. Killua hadn’t seen the village any other time, during winter or fall. He’d gotten used to the hazy idyll. Or had simply stopped noticing. 

He shrugged. Looked down at his scraped knees.

“You know your way around here, don’t you?” Kurapika asked. 

“I guess. Why?”

“I’m going a little stir crazy here. I didn’t expect to file so many patient documents on  _ vacation _ \--” Kurapika pointedly said this to the door, as if Leorio could hear. “You’d think in such a small town surrounded by nature that there’d be somewhere--”

Leorio stepped onto the porch again clutching a little paper bag with medicine. “I got the stuff.”

Killua tapped his foot on the stair. He understood what Kurapika meant, but instead said, “Do you have to make everything sound so goddamn shady?”

Leorio threw up his hands. “What did I do now?”

“You’re making your friend do your job. Are you  _ that _ incompetent?”

“What’s this about?” Leorio pivoted to Kurapika. “We talked about this, don’t give him any ammo or else  _ I’m _ the one getting shot in the foot.”

Kurapika raised their eyebrows slightly, closed their sketchbook, and turned away with an annoyed  _ hmph! _

Killua stood up and proudly announced, “I’m electing your delivery boy services. Take Bisky her stuff ASAP.” He skipped into the road, saying to Kurapika. “I know just the place.”

Kurapika stuffed away their sketchbook and pencils, not sparing a second glance. 

“You know where Bisky lives, right?” Killua called to Leorio, whose eyes were wide, mouth gaping like a fish.

He flung his arms around. “No! I don’t!” 

“Go,  _ go _ ,” Kurapika urged. “He’ll figure it out.”

Killua didn’t have to be told twice. He trekked up the hill and Kurapika followed dutifully in the wake of Leorio’s protests. Once they were out of earshot, they made little conversation. Killua hated small talk, but he had to know:

“Really? That guy?”

Kurapika let out a long-suffering sigh. “ _ That guy _ .” 

He made the turn into the forest and sealed off the outside world for the quietude of the trees. There were a few spirits: a monkey-like one hanging from a branch, giving them an upside-down quizzical look as they walked past, and small, black fluffs, only identifiable by their eyes, floating around Killua’s head, lifting up strands of his hair and trying to make him laugh. Kurapika saw none of them. One of the fluffs tickled their nose, and they wrinkled their face.

Kurapika flicked their hand in front of their face and hit the fluff with a squeak. “Bugs,” they said.

The fluff spirits, offended, scampered off. Killua bit his lip. Kurapika couldn’t be older than twenty, and yet they already couldn’t see them. But everyone’s different, he told himself. 

“It’s up here,” Killua said.

The sun shined a spotlight onto the shrine. Bat-winged spirits tugged at the diminutive shide, but to Kurapika it probably just looked like wind disturbing the streamers.

“How did you find this place…?” Kurapika asked, bewildered. They skimmed their hand over the rough stone barrier.

“By accident, several years ago,” Killua said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gon peek from behind a tree. He shot him a silent question. Killua responded with terse  _ go away _ , in hand form, but Gon gesticulated in indiscernible speech and Kurapika said, “Oh? Who’s this?”

Killua palmed his face. “That’s my friend, Gon.”

Gon stumbled over some grabby plants into the clearing. He bowed his head politely. He was wearing his mask again. “I’m Gon.” 

Kurapika introduced themself, proceeding to make awkward niceties with Gon. They glanced at Killua while Gon chatted about something or other, understandably confused at this odd child living in the forest, but took it in perfect stride nonetheless. 

Gon had a habit of giving tours and expounding every detail about something to the extreme (Killua knew more about moss and beetles than he would ever please to) and a complete stranger like Kurapika was no exception. 

“ _ Look what I found _ ,” he said to both of them. 

He ushered them away from the shrine--again, Kurapika shared a doubtful look, but Killua whispered, “Just go with it.”

They all came upon an uprooted tree laid on its side. The base of its trunk was nearly two, three stories high, and the trunk itself cleaved a wide gap through the other trees. Gon shifted excitedly.

“You can go  _ inside _ ,” he said. 

“How? I don’t see...” 

Kurapika trailed off. They approached the tangle of roots that had been excavated over the years from an ancient tomb of dirt and plants and appeared bare and twisted like ghoulish fingers. Colonies of moss and tree saplings had overtaken the huge, rotting log. There was a depression left by its roots from when it fell that was intact. Kurapika slid down into it.

“Come on, Killua,” Gon said. “It’s worth it. I promise.”

Killua rolled his eyes. Where Kurapika had gone, there was a wide crack in the base. The wood surrounding it was chewed up by termites. He thought he saw Kurapika’s shadow--there was light on the other side. Above his head, Gon gripped onto a root like a handle, using the slope of dirt as leverage as he hung dangerously close over Killua. He had removed his mask, the kitsune face dangling from his neck. A bead of sweat shined at his temple. He could feel his breath on the back of his neck. 

Killua sidled into the log. His skin itched all over--from the creepy crawlies and thorny plants, certainly. He got up close and personal with the rotting wood, and the cleft narrowed and narrowed--

And suddenly opened into a modest cavern. Bioluminescent fungi nested in the walls of wood, bathing the space in teal light. The threads of cobwebs overhead shined silver like woven silk. 

“ _ Foxfire _ , remember?” Gon whispered, right next to Killua’s ear.

Killua nodded. He was speechless. Kurapika, too. They had their sketchbook open--and their mouth--but looked around the log in awe of the glowing mushrooms.

“I don’t get why it’s called that. Mito doesn’t use fire. At least I don’t think she does. She would’ve told me, right? That’d be so cool. She told me when she--” 

Killua grabbed Gon’s mask and shoved it over his face. Gon laughed, the sound warped around the mask.

“Okay, okay, I’ll be quiet,” he said.

Killua let the mask drop. Gon’s hair had the faintest green tinge, and when he smiled, his teeth were blue in the light. One of his incisors was chipped, Killua noted. He was too close. 

Killua cleared his throat. “I...We should go--let the artist do their thing.” Admittedly the mushrooms were cool, but the small space made him nervous; if he turned around too quickly or stumbled, Gon would be right in the way. 

“Is Killua okay?” Gon allowed some space for Killua to maneuver around him safely, then moved to follow him.

“Actually,” Kurapika interjected, “can you stay? I’d like to ask you some questions, it’s for a project.” They had begun a sketch, raising their head up and down from their sketchpad to squinting closely at the glowing clusters. “I assume you’d like to share a thing or two?”

Gon deliberated between them, visibly torn.

“I’m fine,” Killua said. “I just need some air.”

Gon pushed out his lower lip, nodding once. Killua returned to daylight. He climbed the roots of the fallen tree to sit at the top. The wood was slick with rain and moss--a couple different types, he could name them if he tried. 

Killua heard a murmur of voices from within the tree--the spirits from before, the black fluffs, reappeared to flit around him like swooping butterflies. Gon had told him once that they flocked to troubled people. So did crows and vultures, Killua thought, though to different definitions of ‘troubled.’ 

The fluffs chirped, landing on his outstretched fingers, light as feathers, absolutely harmless. But gods--it was cruel, wasn’t it, for Gon to live without being touched? Excised from his own kind. Trapped in a world that wasn’t his. Killua had never asked, of course. Gon had an extraordinary talent of fitting himself in the shallowest of niches. He was happy. Killua was just...He was overthinking it. 

He scratched a fluff that was bumping his cheek, though he couldn’t exactly feel it. Like his skin and brain couldn't match up, or comprehend what it was touching. Would Gon feel the same? he wondered. Somewhere between human and not. Their tentative agreement on ‘ghost.’

Killua held the fluff in his palms. “Why did Orpheus turn around?” 

It blinked its wide, cartoonish eyes. It seemed to get heavier in his hands. 

“Troubled, huh?” Killua mumbled. He was remembering things from a useless literature class. No shit he was troubled. 

He let the fluff go. Gon and Kurapika emerged from the cavern, talking about--talking about leaves and their respective trees. Gon pinged around a small patch of forest and collected a book’s worth of leaves and showed them to Kurapika, listing off tree names that were more colloquial than anything. Kurapika seemed intently interested, taking a few leaves and pressing them between the pages of their sketchbook.

Gon showed them back to the shrine. Killua and Kurapika bid him farewell, Killua discreetly waving to Mito as well, who watched over the shrine as she always did. 

“Sweet kid,” Kurapika said. They opened their sketchbook, flipping through the pages, and ripped one out. “Here. I thought you might want this.”

Deft, graphite lines formed a drawing of Gon. His kitsune mask hung from his neck, a small smile on his face. The shadows under his cheekbones and jawline detailed the lighting of the mushroom cavern. His eyes were soft, looking elsewhere and mouth parted--blabbing about something, no doubt.

“Thank you,” Killua said slowly. His mouth was dry.

He looked to Kurapika. A smirk pulled imperceptibly at their lip.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Take good care of it. Although, I probably don’t need to tell you that.”

Killua scoffed--it was stupid, _ stupid _ , his face flushing red. Just when he thought someone so decent could be friends with someone so infuriating. 

  
  


Killua fell to the same fate as his sister: boarding school. Such an easy fix for his dad to jettison his children from his home, although this was more deliberate projecting than sweeping under the rug. Killua attended his old high school. The building was fashioned with bricks, made to imitate Western universities. It loomed over him with fancy friezes and Latin engravings, reeking of aristocracy and nepotism. He would know. His whole life had been suffused in the posh and unnecessary. 

The dorms across campus, however. 

He was given a thin white key card, swiped it over the reader, and entered the downstairs common room, which instead reeked of smoke and flowery air freshener doing a pisspoor job of covering up the undertones of beer and vomit. His room was on the fourth floor. No elevator. No air conditioning. The 21st century had barely made an appearance until he passed the private halls: music blasted from the dorms of his fellow students, semi-muffled cursing and obscenely fake moaning. (Hopefully fake, that is. It was move-in day. He could believe it was fake on move-in day.) All he’d brought with him was a bag of clothes, toiletries, some school stuff, phone charger, et cetera. He didn’t realize how bare the dorm rooms were until he reached his. A bed. A desk. An empty closet. Brick wall with chips in it. A noisy radiator. And of course, his roommate.

He was splayed out on his bed, napping. He snorted himself awake when Killua walked in.

“Zoldyck, right?” he said, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Killua. Killua’s fine.” He shuffled awkwardly in the doorway. He knew he’d have a roommate, but he clammed up in front of the stranger in his room-- _ their  _ room. That would take some getting used to.

“Come on in,” his roommate said. “The water’s great.”

Killua suppressed an eyeroll. He threw his bag onto his bed, then plopped onto the mattress. Hard as a rock. He’d think a school attended by the filthy rich wouldn’t be fraying at the seams. Maybe this was some form of cruel and unusual punishment. Illumi had been very amused on the drive up here. He even offered to carry his bag. 

But that was neither here nor there. It didn’t particularly matter to him where he went. 

His roommate’s side of the dorm was equally as uninteresting. A few posters and a plaid blanket. His laptop was open on his desk, bubbles bouncing around the screen. His phone lit up beside him with a text. He ignored it. “Hotaru,” he said. “If you care to know.”

He stuck out his hand. Killua stared at it. A bandage wrapped around his index finger. A few dark brown scars littered his skin. He was quite tan despite the lack of sun farther north, with unruly black hair that was long enough to brush the tips of his ears.

“I’m not gonna bite you,” Hotaru said.

Killua shook his hand for half a second, then retracted it quickly. Hotaru laughed, loud and raspy, flashing crooked teeth. One was chipped. Killua flinched.

“Sorry, sorry.” Hotaru waved a hand in front of his face. He sniffed. “I’ll try not to scare you next time. How ‘bout it roomie? Partners?”

Killua didn’t know what he was agreeing to. He shrugged noncommittally, Hotaru clapped him on the shoulder, shaking him hard, and the pact was formed. Friendship acquired. He thought nothing of it as he put his clothes away. He slept until dinner. He woke to Hotaru poking his cheek and they walked together to the mess hall. This part of campus was slightly more modern--Killua expected them to be roasting a giant pig on a spit or using ancient wood-fired ovens with heavy tables lining a cold, stone room like a castle--but the mess hall was set up like a standard cafeteria. Hotaru sat down, attracting two people he apparently knew. They chatted and Killua preoccupied himself with his phone. There was barely any service. Figured.

“Met this guy--like, literally just now,” Hotaru was saying to his friends. “Ain’t that right, Killua?”

Hotaru sidled up next to him on the bench, wrapped his arm around his shoulders, and jostled him around. And stayed there.

Surely this was normal. They’d just met. People did this all the time. Soon enough Hotaru pulled his arm away and his friends didn’t act like anything was off but Killua was shocked to stillness. On the inside he chanted,  _ don’t make it weird, don’t make it weird _ , but on the outside he was trying not to physically combust. 

“Yo man, you good?” Hotaru asked under his breath.

Killua glared at him. Threw a grape at his tray. “Fine,” he said.

But it kept happening. Constantly. Little touches here and there that were 100% friendly and non-threatening that pushed Killua’s nerves into overdrive. He never told Hotaru--no, that would expose the fact that he was blowing this completely out of proportion and acting like a freak. He had become suddenly hyper-aware of his brushing against classmates in halls, touching their hands passing paper and pencils. Getting tapped on the arm. Someone picking lint off his clothes. Closeness during sports and downtime in the common room when he dared to sit on those disgusting couches. Hotaru laid on his side, kicking Killua’s legs with his socked feet. He didn’t hate it, necessarily. Just didn’t like it either. He was jumpy and twitchy, an acute feeling of  _ wrongness _ settling over his skin. Too much, yet not enough at the same time. He walked around like there was a rock in his shoe because something wasn’t right and it killed him, not knowing what it was. 

About a week or two into the term, Killua was doing homework. He opened a folder, and tucked in the pocket was a knot of fishing line. He bit his lip.  _ What was _ ...right, Gon had given this to him. He loosened the knot enough to slide it over his little finger, twisting it around idly. Gon had slim fingers, knobby knuckles, short nails. He talked a lot, and as much he talked there was equal movement. He’d always wanted to snatch his hand and hold it down, that way Killua would maybe have the slightest chance of understanding what the hell he was talking about. They looked smooth despite the climbing and fishing and digging and--

Killua stopped twisting the ring. An invisible fist squeezed his stomach into a tight ball of dread. He couldn’t want that. The outcome would be disastrous. He laughed to himself. Stupid,  _ stupid _ .

“Hey,” Hotaru croaked. He’d been asleep, his head down on his desk opposite the room. He got up now, shuffling over to Killua’s side. “Watcha doing?”

He clamped his hand over the space where Killua’s neck met his shoulder. Killua closed his eyes.

“Homework,” he said. “I’ll turn off the light if it’s bothering you.”

“No, it doesn’t bother me.”

He lingered, leaning over to look at Killua’s math homework.

“Prick. I know you’re right even if I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing…”

His hand was still there. Killua twitched.

“I can tell you now, letters do  _ not  _ belong in math, I mean--” he got closer, squinting at the page--“What  _ is _ that, that’s not even...hold on…” 

If he just-- _ tried  _ something--Killua slowly raised his left arm, dropped his fingertips on the back of Hotaru’s hand. He inhaled sharply. His hand was smooth and warm and the bone of his wrist stuck out and it stayed there and  _ he _ stayed there in one piece and he didn’t immolate or explode and all of a sudden he felt like he had to throw up or sob and--

“Killua?”

Killua had enough sense to lift his hand away slowly and place it calmly on his desk. “Hand,” he managed to say.

“Oh, sorry.” Hotaru lifted off Killua’s shoulder. “Get some sleep, okay? Don’t stay up too late.”

“Gotcha. Thanks.”

Hotaru climbed under his covers. Killua clenched and unclenched his jaw for hours. His skin smarted like he’d been burned. The heaviness in his chest wouldn’t go away, and when the sun rose he realized it was shame.

  
  
  


Killua sprawled out on the tatami mats in Bisky’s home, camping out in front of the box fan reading a magazine. He’d been fending off the heatwave on his own for a while; his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, dazed as he flipped through glossy pages, absorbing nothing. There was a game board in the middle of the room with black and white stone pieces arranged meticulously. Bisky had abandoned her new hobby a while ago. Killua flipped his magazine closed. He wished she had the sense to tell him where she was going sometimes, though he supposed the sentiment was mutual. Anytime he left the house she never questioned him. He doubted he had a good lie to tell if she ever did--one that she’d believe, anyway. 

He slipped on some shoes, closed up the house, and walked the familiar path to the stone lantern, the shrine. Under the canopy of trees, more spirits churned about than usual. A reptilian-glider-thing with crab claws joined him in stride, jerking around with restless excitement. Various woodland-ish creatures--bears that walked upright, weasels flying on their own vortex of dust, and chickens that spewed smoke from their beaks--flocked in the same direction. He’d never seen so many spirits at once.

After walking alongside them, they arrived at the confluence, and in the middle of it was Bisky.

She didn’t notice him at first. She was busy with the chicks nesting in her ridiculously large hat--they had glowing scales, great. Bisky had dressed for the occasion with a large frilly skirt and white gloves, thin fingers pinching a dainty teacup. She clinked cups with an over-eager Gon, who spilled tea over a tree stump fashioned into a table.

Bisky followed Gon’s line of sight and brightened upon seeing Killua. “There you are! About time you joined us.”

“My bad. I didn’t realize I was invited,” Killua said. He tried for venomous, but it came out vacant.

“This stuff is great!” Gon exclaimed, then off to the side, “What did you say it was again?”

“Chamomile,” Bisky supplied. 

His eyebrows shot to his hairline. “ _ The flower? _ ” 

Bisky regaled him about tea. Gon was slack-jawed as he listened to her, simultaneously baffled and confused-- _ that made two of them _ . While she spoke, Bisky pet a chihuahua-sized cross between a bear and fox, scratching under its chin. Unless she just discovered a new freak of nature, Bisky could see spirits. Which was news to him. It should’ve been impossible. Kurapika couldn’t even see them, and Bisky was well over twenty, no offense.

“Have a seat, Killua,” she said.

Gon took the liberty of pouring him tea, fascinated by the pour and steam and porcelain cups. Killua knelt next to the stump; it had a tiny gingham tablecloth topped with a tin of ginger snaps, a teapot, and three cups. Gon lifted his-- _ “Clink, clink _ ,” he whispered--and Killua humored him with a toast. Bisky took a calculating sip, placed it on the cloth, and folded her hands.

“I can’t believe you would hide such a nice boy from me. Look at him, look how nice he is!”

Gon blushed and giggled like he was one of her old lady friends that came over to play mahjong. Killua was appalled.

“How did you--when--what?” he stuttered.

“I had to know where you were sneaking off to eventually. I thought you were doing regular kid things like--oh I don’t know, making mud pies or catching bugs--but now that you’re older I had to make sure you hadn’t joined a cult, or something.”

“A cult,” Killua repeated dryly.

“Did you know she and Mito are acquaintances?” Gon said to Killua. 

Bisky swirled her cup of tea, pinching her lipsticked mouth. “ _ Acquaintances _ is pushing it. I found this place when I was young, much like you did, Killua, but I wasn’t keen on coming back. Kitsune don’t tend to be friendly.”

“She’s better now,” Gon said. “That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

Bisky smiled lightly. “I should’ve known--she was protecting someone.” She traced her eyes from Gon to the decrepit shrine, the absence of its guardian, and the abundance of spirits. 

“And...you can still see them? How?” Killua asked tentatively.

Bisky blinked, then her face fell. “I couldn’t tell you  _ how _ . I’ve had this ability for as long as I can remember. There’s nothing to learn.” 

There was a beat of awkwardness. Immune, Gon dumped five sugar cubes into his tea. 

Bisky sighed, and the fox-bear in her lap irritably slinked away. “My uncle was the same as I and he turned into a blathering, senile old man,” she said. “It scared me. I ran away for a long time.” 

“You already have the senile part down,” Killua said, but his voice lacked bite.

Gon snorted. Bisky picked up the tin of cookies to lob at Killua’s head, but he dodged it quickly. Lumbering badgers ferried it away. 

“But you can’t run away forever, I suppose,” Bisky said wistfully. “Learned that one much too late. Where  _ is _ Mito, by the way? I’d like to see her.”

“Close enough to listen,” Gon said. “She talked about seeing if she could still ‘do something,’ whatever that means.” He swirled the tea in his cup and frowned. “She started growing her ninth tail the other day and she’s not happy about it.”

“Oh hon.” Bisky crossed her arm over the tree stump and placed her hand next to Gon’s as if to comfort him. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s not going anytime soon, but...you know. She’s dealing with it.”

Bisky nodded in understanding. Killua didn’t. He didn’t feel like listening much anymore. Bisky told stories of her boring childhood that Gon politely listened to and Killua gladly tuned out. Occasionally, Gon would pipe up with an “oh I know, [ _ insert name _ ]!” and they’d inexplicably bond over a spirit or other they’d both met at one point. 

“Those otters have quick fingers--they took my earrings and the buckles off my shoes and I wouldn’t notice until I got home…”

Killua didn’t pay attention to the rest. He drummed his fingers on the stump. There was a memory blinking behind his eyelids as if he were looking up at the sun through leaves, intermittently in and out of shadow, an afterimage, until it slipped like water through his fingers. 

  
  
  
  


Gon dove a lithe arc into the blue spring and broke through the surface with a shake of his head.

“Come on in!” he shouted.

Killua painstakingly applied sunscreen on his skin, struggling to get his shoulder blades. He winced when a muscle stretched uncomfortably. Finals had kicked his ass all the way to summer break, and he was lucky enough not to need remedial lessons--and he celebrated by getting on the earliest train to Bisky’s. He didn’t need the wrath of his parents, or brother. His grades definitely warranted it, but he passed by the skin of his teeth. (And subsequently threw his phone somewhere in the garden the second he arrived.)

He tossed aside the sunscreen and cannonballed into the pool. Cold water rushed over him, swallowing him whole; he opened his eyes to see Gon’s legs kicking himself afloat, threads of light filtering through the water and cracking his skin like glass. Killua swam upward. Only to be smacked in the face with a wave.

Gon sported a poorly concealed smirk. “Hi.”

In lieu of a proper response Killua counterattacked. 

Gon spluttered, swiping water out of his eyes. His hair wilted, sticking to his face. He blinked droplets from his lashes.

“We’re even,” Killua said.

Gon tilted his head. His arms swirled as he treaded water, which he was absently focused on doing in combination with staring at Killua.

Killua pushed his hair away and swiped at his face. Nothing, not even a stray leaf sticking to his forehead. “What?” 

Gon gave a small laugh, flicking the water so Killua turned away. “I missed you, is all.”

Heat crawled dangerously fast up his face. Killua dunked into the cool water. He saw Gon follow suit, strings of bubbles coming out of his nose and mouth. He pulled his ears, puffed his cheeks, and crossed his eyes. Underwater, they flashed like fish scales. 

When Killua’s lungs began to seize, he broke the surface, gasping for air, and swam toward an outcropping of rock. Inky smears of black and tan rippled as Gon moved beneath the still water.

Killua thought to go in after him, he had been underwater so long, but he came up for air and swam over to him. He had a ring with a silver band pinched between his fingers, and he closed one eye to peer through it.

“This Killua’s?” he asked.

Killua held out his hand. “Lemme see.” 

Gon dropped it into his palm. It could’ve been old, but it had no tarnish or rust on the surface. The gemstone that had been set in the band was missing. 

“Sometimes the river brings things from upstream. I’ve gotta collection somewhere,” Gon said. ”I think it’s mostly trash and coins though.”

Killua laughed, turning over the ring. “Did you lose it?”

“It was in a tree hollow somewhere...or a mole hole.” 

“Bisky might like it,” Killua said. “She likes all kinds of weird shit.”

“Take it then. I stopped giving that stuff to Mito a long time ago.”

Killua paused, opened his mouth, closed it. Gon continued.

“She’s real pretty as a person, but she doesn’t...uh, wear it a lot, I guess.” Gon scratched his head. “So yeah, keep it. I probably have a dozen of those.”

“Thanks,” Killua deadpanned.

“If I ever find it again, Killua can have my whole stash.”

Gon lifted himself onto the rock and twirled his legs in the water. Killua turned the ring over in his palm; he put it on his index finger, but it was too big.

“Sometimes I wonder where they came from,” Gon said. “All the things I find. Half the time I don’t even know what they are. I had to ask Mito what a hair comb was.”  
“You could get pretty far without knowing what a hair comb is, Gon.”

“Still.” He shrugged. “I just wanna know what it’s like, the world outside the forest.” 

Killua breathed in deeply, exhaled. “Boring,” he said resolutely.

Gon kicked water at him. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s how I see it, anyway.”

“But I wanna know--do you really have lights that you can turn on? Inside?”

“Yes.”

“And cars? They honk like--errrrrrn!”

Killua snorted. 

“And like,  _ boats _ , on the ocean--I can smell it from here, so I know it's there, but to be  _ on _ it.” Gon spread his arms wide, Killua leaning aside to avoid him. “Salty water that goes on forever and ever. Could you imagine?”

“It’s a whole lot of nothing. Plus you get seasick.”

Gon pouted. “Don’t get me wrong, I love it here, but to be somewhere else just once...If me and Killua could switch places, I don’t think I’d ever stop moving and  _ doing  _ things.”

Killua twisted the ring around his finger idly. “I would though. In a heartbeat,” he mumbled.

Gon looked at him, deep creases beneath his eyes and his brows pitched together. Killua had never seen such plain distress on his face that he startled.

“What?”

He shook his head, and the expression slipped away. He watched a cluster of bugs dance around in a beam of light over the spring. “I hardly know anything about Killua either,” he said. “Do you have friends?” 

“I have you.”

“ _ Other  _ friends.”

Killua thought about it for a second; his response was much the same. “No.”

“What about Killua’s family?”

“I have four siblings. You’ve already met the only one worth knowing.”

“Alluka. How is she?” Gon asked.

Killua had seen less and less of her over the years, but he knew she was happy-- _ inferred _ that she was happy, more like, since she was so rarely at home.

“She’s good. She’s graduating with me next year, a whole term before her other classmates.”

“She must be smart,” Gon said. 

“She’s really smart. Scary sometimes.”

There was something he wasn’t saying. His voice has gone thin under the strain.

“Gon?”

“Has she…” Gon hesitated, licking his chapped lips. “Has she forgotten me?”

The few times they did speak, Killua never chanced to bring Gon up again, for fear that his suspicions would be confirmed. He was almost certain she had. “I don’t know,” Killua said. It wasn’t a total lie.

Gon searched his face for a moment. Finding nothing--or perhaps finding what he was looking for--he sighed. “It’s happened before,” he said. “I haven’t known someone as long as you, besides Mito and the other spirits. All the humans I’ve met before...they don’t come back. Except you.”

Killua rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not going anywhere, Gon.” 

Gon pulled his legs to his chest. There was something unsettled about him, a restless energy that made Killua’s stomach turn like he was leaning over a cliff with the wind whipping him around. Gon inhaled sharply, said all in one breath, “I want to know what it’s like to disappear.” 

Killua blinked at him, incredulous and horrified and he choked on his own spit, spluttering out, “W-What? No!”

Gon looked at him like a kicked dog, equal parts shy and guilty. He laughed nervously. Too loud. Too hurried. He picked furiously at his fingernails. He had been for a while. They were bleeding. 

“Not like that,” he said. “I-I didn’t mean it like that, I meant...I want to disappear as in leave. And stuff. That’s all.”

He wouldn’t look at him. 

“It better be, idiot,” Killua said, terribly weak.

Gon slid into the water. He backstroked to the middle of the spring, and repeated to the sky, “Yeah. That’s all.”

Killua wouldn’t admit it--he refused to. He ignored the entire upheaval of his worldly axis and listened to the water churn as Gon swam around the spring. He closed his hand into a fist around the ring and let it bite his palm until it hurt and he squeezed harder.

Even then--even then, Killua knew what he was asking.

  
  
  
  



	3. kyuu

Outside of his dorm room, his floormates trampled down the hall, their excited and riled up voices echoing from the stairwell. Killua was wrapped in a scarf and hat, forcing his numb fingers to keep packing his bag--the school’s shitty boiler had taken an early leave for winter vacation. The space heater ticked in the corner of the room.

Strewn around his bed were his wrinkled assortment of clothes. His duffle bag was still mostly empty. 

It would be his last winter break before he graduated. For some reason he thought there should be a little more deliberation, a little more nostalgia and wistfulness involved. It was hard to do when he couldn’t care less. 

A body collided with the door: his roommate, Mori, bursting into the room with his buddies in tow. He was wearing a wooden kabuki mask, grunting and making animal noises to get his friends to laugh. He skittered onto his bed and jumped and hooted like an ape. Killua rolled his eyes. He’d pass on the nostalgia. 

“Killua!” one of them harassed his arm. He gave them a pity laugh-slash-hum. If he said he didn’t find it funny, they wouldn’t leave until he did--and he’d rather do that sometime today. His sister and the rest of his family would be in the same place for the first time in a while. He hadn’t ever anticipated wanting to see them, but he supposed living several dozen miles away in a school full of idiots would do that to him. 

Mori eventually got it out of his system. He took off the mask and hung it around his neck to talk to his friends normally. 

Killua folded a hoodie, ultimately throwing it into his bag with the rest of his sloppy mess of clothes. No...that couldn’t be right. Every time he, Alluka, and Kalluto came home from their respective corners of the province, Killua always caused a scene: sicking the dog on the landscaper (the flower gardens were ugly), dredging up the kind of stuff in Milluki’s “homework” folder on his computer (he kept calling Alluka a boy on purpose), threatening to come out to Grandpa Zeno on speakerphone at dinner (because his parents would have a hernia, and they were annoying him). That wasn’t to mention the stuff that hadn’t been his fault. 

His family in one place would be a shitshow. 

Mori slipped the mask from around his neck, the light glancing off the brow, and Killua felt a twinge in his gut. It wasn’t his family he missed. That was ridiculous. It was--

“Give me that!” Killua yelped. He tore the mask from Mori’s hands, running his thumb protectively over the peeling paint.  _ How could he have…? _

“S-Sorry, I didn’t know it was yours.”

“Where did you find this?!”

Mori blinked in surprise. Killua had probably said maybe a collective ten words to him in the time they’d been roommates.

He didn’t respond quick enough--Killua wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway over the rushing in his ears. He stuffed his bag with whatever he could grab and dashed out of the room. Mori’s friends cleared him a wide berth, and the people on the stairs shifted to the wall as he stomped wildly down the steps. He hit the cold air of the courtyard where droves of students were migrating toward the buses. Killua darted around from bus to bus until he found one that would take him to the train station. 

He shambled down the aisle, gripping seats to give him leverage. He fell into one and pulled out his phone, hands shaking so badly he redialed his sister’s number three times. When she picked up her voice was garbled. 

“K-llua?”

“Tell Dad I won’t be home until--until later. I’m sorry.”

“What’s going on? Gotoh’s--ready there--llua?”

Killua touched Gon’s mask. A pressure built behind his eyes. His vision spotted. Alluka crackled over the line. 

“I’m sorry,” he said again and hung up. 

He put his head in his hands, bile crawling up his throat. He felt his skull splitting itself in half: a dam collapsing and inundating him in memories--memories that he had lost? 

He saw townsfolk. A lot of them. They made him nervous, for a reason he couldn’t place. Lanterns, food stalls, music blaring, jostling from all sides. Everything imaginable assaulting his senses. A festival. 

And Gon. 

He wore his mask, as he tended to do around strangers, and was dressed in a traditional white yukata. A branch connected their hands, but this time Killua was in front. He led him around the meandering columns of people walking the path, tuning into Gon’s slow, quiet footfalls. He kept his eyes forward. 

Children ran about, interspersed with the shadow of spirits chasing them.

Gon was speaking faintly; the memory was threadbare, worn and thin like old cloth. Killua wanted to reach out and wondered if even in a memory Gon would disappear. 

Leorio and Kurapika were there. They leaned against a half-wall of stone, swapping skewers of fried food. 

“Who’s this?” Leorio had said, voice exceptionally clear.

Gon chatted, and Killua wandered off. The path running through the festival curved into the forest beyond. Little kids gathered around the treeline, pushing each other toward the darkness and then scurrying back into the safe glow of the lanterns. But they tired of this quickly, their bare feet slapping the dirt path as they returned to the festival.

One bumped into Killua. “Sorry mister!”

He backtracked as he said this and didn’t see the sharp rock sticking out of the ground. Gon had come to find him. The kid stumbled, Gon reflexively tried to grab him before he fell. Killua’s heart leapt into his throat, blocking his scream.

The kid righted himself in the nick of time. “Woah!” he exclaimed, splaying his arms out to balance. “ _ That _ could’ve been bad!”

Gon brushed off his initial shock and amicably shooed the kid off toward the food stalls. With just Killua in this corner of the festival, he took off his mask, letting it hang around his neck, and he stuck his hands into his sleeves.

“You gotta be careful around all these people,” Killua said.

“I know,” Gon replied. He awkwardly shuffled on his wooden sandals. He was far away, just when Killua was getting used to the tragically small space Gon liked to put between them. 

“You’re doing it again,” Killua said. 

“What?”

“You’re not talking.” 

The not talking, when he really had something to say. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Though, as the bus revved out of the school’s parking lot, nothing came to mind--nothing that would explain the pit of dread that throttled the oxygen getting to his brain. He just couldn’t  _ remember _ .

Gon’s mouth was moving. He heard, distorted and muffled, as if beneath churning waves:  _ “Killua...I--I have to ask you something.” _

And he...what did he do? What did he do next?

The memory stuttered and skipped like a CD, like he hadn’t actually been there and was watching somebody act out his life in front of him. But--he left, didn’t he? He must have. Because of that tone of voice he had, his features pinched in that sickening expression of grief, right before he was about to say something stupid. 

Killua shut him out. Forced the memory to recede to where it had been locked up tight.

  
  
  
  


Snow fell softly to the earth. 

Killua’s breath puffed out in clouds. He had run all the way from the train platform, driven by the singular purpose of making it to the shrine as quickly as possible. And now--he didn’t know what to say. Hours spent getting here and he didn’t know what to say.

Gon was sitting on the dais, cross-legged with his chin propped up on his fist. There were snowflakes in his hair, his eyelashes. He was too calm, too calm for Killua who had just lost everything, only to have gotten back a few precious pieces that he was struggling, even now, to hold onto. Gon smiled sadly, eyes swimming--already knowing why he was here. 

“Killua, it’s fine,” he said.

“It’s  _ not _ ,” Killua cried, covering his face with his hands, numb and tinged blue. “Don’t say that. Don’t you  _ dare _ say that.”

“Everyone does. It’s not Killua’s fault.”

Gon was speaking to him like he would a child, serene and coddling and fucking aggravating. For once, at the worst possible moment, he was acting mature and--no,  _ no _ , Killua would not say  _ sensible _ .

“I knew that it’d be like this,” Gon continued. “It’s been like this forever. Even Mito said she was surprised--”

“Stop!” Killua shouted. “Just...just  _ stop _ . You can’t be okay with this. Quit acting like it’s fair.”

“I know better than anyone that it’s not fair.” Gon’s posture withered. His voice fragile, cracking like ice: “But what can I do?”

He slowly got up from the dais. He had his standard way of dress on, plus a jacket of tightly woven straw. The entire image was wrong. The backdrop of winter, no greenery or foliage or  _ color _ , nowhere to be found, not even in Gon, where it had been leached and replaced by a gray sorrow--and no mask to keep it from buffeting against Killua as if he were a tiny boat on a stormy sea and the winds were trying to drown the both of them. 

“I’ve tried to tell you that I want to go,” Gon said, approaching him slowly, “and you never listen--”

“Gon,  _ no _ .”

“I want it to be Killua.”

Killua’s face crumpled, tears streaking down his cheeks. His lungs shuddered as he sobbed and gasped for freezing air. 

Gon stepped closer. Killua flinched.

“Get away from me,” he snapped.

Gon wavered uncertainly. He backed off an inch.

“You promised,” Killua croaked, his throat scraped raw, “that we wouldn’t keep anything from each other.  _ You _ said that--a-and if I...if I had known that my best friend was gonna ask me to  _ kill  _ him--”

Killua sniffed, wiping at his nose and cheeks. “I wish we  _ never _ would’ve met.”

Gon bit his lip. He stood across from Killua at the steps of the shrine, hesitating for a long time. He was just the slightest bit shorter than Killua.

“I tried...but you ignored me, and what about you, huh? You should’ve told me that you were forgetting.”

“So that you could--what,” Killua said derisively, “so you get this over with sooner?”

Gon heaved a sigh that should’ve swept through the clearing with the great weight that it held, but it sounded so small coming from him. He sat on the steps of the shrine, scrubbing his face with his hands.

“I’m  _ tired _ , Killua. I’m so tired,” he breathed, “You won’t be killing me, but...it’ll be just like letting go.”

Anger reared hot in Killua's chest. “It doesn’t matter!” he barked. “I refuse to be left with a memory of you that I’m just going to forget!”

“And I don’t want to be forgotten anymore! Not by Killua!”

Gon raked his fingers over his scalp, resting them on the back of his neck. “It never bothered me for long, that people forgot. I didn’t really care until Killua. And I should’ve told Killua a lot of things, but I was scared that  _ you _ would be scared and I’d lose you. I’m never gonna meet anyone like Killua because there  _ is _ no one like Killua.”

Gon lifted his head, staring at him in earnest. “How could there be? How could it be anyone else?”

“I  _ can’t _ ,” Killua grit through his teeth. “Don’t call this fate.”

Gon flashed a watery smile. “Is it not?

Killua threw his arms out weakly, and they flopped limply to his sides. “So I have to lose you instead?”

“We’re out of time, Killua. Look around.”

Begrudgingly, Killua did. He searched the shrine, the desolate clearing. Fog from the mountains had rolled into the valley and submersed the trees in mist. It mixed with the falling snow that swirled like dust motes in a beam of light--moving strangely with the wind, curling and fluttering in the air. Gon met Killua’s eyes; for a moment, he watched the rise and fall of his chest, his cloudless breathing. 

Gon quirked his lip downward. Pitying. 

“You don’t see her, do you?”

  
  
  
  


Bisky spared Killua her questions when she found him on the stoop, but he saw in the way she did a double-take at the door that it was taking a massive, Herculean effort to keep her mouth shut. 

She simply ushered him out of the cold, standing on her toes to brush snow off his shoulders. 

“I’ll start us some tea,” she said. Ever the predictable one.

Killua followed her to the kitchen, where she filled a kettle with water and put it on the stove. She started the gas burner with a few clicks until the flame caught, then came over to the table and folded her legs under the kotatsu. She patiently occupied herself with a crossword puzzle. 

In his bag, Gon’s mask lay half-buried in his messy clothes. Killua took it out and set it on the table, wood clattering on wood. There was a story behind it and the sweet, wise voice that had told it. Anything beyond that escaped him. This time, he tentatively welcomed the memories, controlling them drop by drop as if from a tap.

The festival again. Its lights and its people. Leorio and Kurapika. A single firework popping in the sky. He was sitting in wild grass fraught with clovers and tall-stalked flowers. 

Gon came last. His face flashed before him as it was lit by exploding white and yellows.

His mask was in his hands. He ran his thumb over the engraving on this inside--nervous habit, maybe, since it was so worn down. The firework show blazed above them. He fidgeted with his fingers, squirming with restless energy; it was distracting, Killua thought, but then again he wasn’t really watching the firework show anyway.

“Killua? Can I--um.” Gon turned closer to him, worrying his lip, flipping the mask over to his palm.

“What?” 

He slowly lifted the mask to Killua’s face. “Tell me to stop,” he said.

Gon bumped his nose so hard that it stung, but any protest of Killua’s was stunned to silence as he felt the mask press into his mouth. He whispered something low, fine as sand, but it was drowned out by Killua’s own pounding heart. 

The burst of a firework bled through his eyelids. He didn’t realize he had them shut. 

“I-I want you to have this,” Gon stuttered, hastily pushing his mask into Killua’s hands. He scooted back infinitesimally--enough to break Killua in half. 

He touched the cleft of the mask’s lips and tried to imagine some vicarious vestige of touch that wouldn’t cost everything. He had a minor, mortifying thought that people were watching; it paled in comparison to the simple kind of softness in his chest that swallowed him whole. A feeling he could live in for the rest of his life.

“You just kissed me,” Killua said, dazed. 

Gon blinked at him, irises molten gold, cheeks furiously red. And he laughed. But not in a way that made Killua want to punch him in the gut. A good laugh.

“As close as I could get,” he said. 

Killua tore his gaze away so Gon wouldn’t see him staving off the inexplicable sheen in his eyes. 

What he’d said...the whisper, passing between a narrow width of wood; Killua remembered it clearly now, though not as pleasantly, like an iron brand taken to his skin--a plea: 

_ “Turn around _ .”

The kettle wailed on the stove. Bisky jumped up and flicked the burner off. She presented two boxes of bagged tea to him. Killua chose the green one with the bear on it. While she poured and steeped, Killua cleared his throat.

“Bisky,” he started, “can I ask you for a favor?”

She hesitated, placing the kettle down with a heavy thunk. He didn’t miss her wordless appeal for an explanation. 

“Sure you can,” she said. 

Killua nodded, and he went across the room to a small table of drawers. His was the one on the bottom; when he had stuff he didn’t want to take home, he threw it in along with his spare clothes. There was a small cardboard box he’d nabbed for the little things.

He brought the box over to Bisky. He opened it and pushed it toward her, and she looked inside with a gasp.

“I’m forgetting him, Bisky,” he said.

“Oh,  _ Killua _ . I-I don’t even know what to say, I’m so sorry.”

She took out the blue coin purse and ring that was in the box. 

“I was gonna give them back to you,” Killua said, “but I held onto them just in case.”

She sniffled lightly. “When did you...?”

“The second I realized I came here.”

There were a couple other things in the box: a loop of fishing line and a portrait that had been folded and unfolded innumerous times. Bisky picked through all of them, tears springing thicker in her eyes, putting the pieces in order and crumbling under the weight of what it meant. 

Bisky glanced up at him, terribly pained.

“Remember him for me, will you?” Killua asked.

She let go of her breath like a sob. “Of course, of course--here.” 

She swiped something off the kitchen counter behind her: a yellow pad of paper and pencil. She slid it over to him. There was a partial grocery list of soap, batteries, and soy sauce. 

“Write as much as you can,” she said. “It'll be gone before you know it.” 

Killua worked backward. The festival, the spring, the shrine, a meadow of fireflies. He listened to Bisky, for once, when she had memories. Hers were already clearer than his as she described the spirits and forest. All throughout, Killua clung to the smallest details:  _ He has a dimple on his left cheek, but not his right, eyes and freckles like dawn. _

By the end, further in the recesses of his memory, he could only sum things up briefly. Barely anything was left of those early days. 

_ We met when I was nine _ , he scratched into the paper and put down the pencil.  __

“That’s...That’s it,” he said. He was afraid he’d have so little, but he’d written through the entire pad of paper. It wouldn’t ever be enough.

“What about his mask?” Bisky asked. “Do you want me to keep that too?”

Killua brushed the surface carefully with his fingers. “No. I’ll take it with me,” he said. “Maybe--Maybe it’ll help. You know, slow it down or something.”

He breathed in shakily. It was about time, now. Bisky reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

“I won’t even know to miss him,” he said.

  
  
  
  


The sun had set, and the stone lantern that marked the beginning of the path was lit. The forest let him in easily. It took him no time at all to find the shrine.

Nothing screamed at Killua to run away. Gon outstretched his arms, hands reaching toward him across a merciless distance, but one that was so gentle in having ever allowed them to find each other. There was no better place for him to be.

They met in the middle. Gon cupped his face like water. He fluttered his eyes closed and--there, on his cheek, a fleck of light, a firefly, then a flurry.

Killua touched the back of his hands and dropped his forehead to Gon’s.

He was warm. 

  
  
  
  


Speakers filled the train cars with a garbled voice signaling the next stop. Killua scrubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stood up from his seat to grab his bag from the overhead storage. He gathered the rest of his things as the train slowed. He was one of the last people aboard: he, and just one other man.

He had a brown hat with a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard and a newspaper tucked under his arm. He seemed familiar, somehow. Perhaps they had taken this train together before.

The old man blinked open his filmy eyes. He sensed Killua looking at him. He coughed into his hand.

“What day is it?” he grunted.

“...Wednesday?” Killua responded.

“ _ Date _ , son.”

Killua opened his phone to check. “May fourth.”

“Oh.” The man adjusted his coat and hat, settling back into a comfortable position. “I came a day too early.”

The train was beginning to pull into the platform; a quaint house streaked past the window. Killua sighed. “Too early for what?” he asked.

The man seemed to think about it. He moved his tongue over his gray teeth and scratched his beard. Killua wrinkled his nose. There was a  _ smell _ , and it definitely wasn’t coming from himself. 

The man grunted again. “Well, now I can’t remember. How strange.”

“Do...Do you know where you are?” Killua asked--he had to, right? But the man didn’t even seem all that confused.

“Certainly,” the man said. “I grew up here-- _ somewhere _ around here.”

“I see...” Killua swallowed, gritting his teeth. “Do you need help...getting there?” 

“Oh, no, no. I’ll take myself back to the station and try again next year.” 

“Next year,” Killua repeated. “Why not just come back tomorrow?”

“I have to get it right. I have to remember it--it’s a special day, after all.”

The train screeched to a stop, and the doors hissed as they opened.

“Okay.” Killua patted his arm dismissively. Well, he tried. “You do that.”

The man nodded, patting him back in some sort of thanks. Killua eerily couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen him before; it was the eyes, he thought. Minus the rheumy tint, they were amber. The color of honey. 

Killua shouldered his bag and stepped off the train. As he walked through town, he tugged the collar of his shirt--he had dressed poorly for the summer. It had been so long since he’d been this far south, since he’d experienced heavy, humid heat like this. 

He passed the clinic:  _ Paladiknight _ had since joined  _ Zepile _ on the plaque out front indicating practicing doctors. Killua laughed to himself. The bastard actually managed to graduate. He’d have to swing by later, but for now he began the climb up the steep hill to the house that sat at the top. 

In the trees flanking the path, Killua noticed a newly built inari statue perched at the edge of the forest. Its dark gray stone gleamed in the sun, a lurid red sash around its neck. 

There was a woman standing at the base of it, looking up at the kitsune sculpture. She had orange hair, a short build, and fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. He didn’t pay her any mind as he passed, but she started when she saw him.

“Killua!”

She hustled to catch him--but realizing his hesitation, she slowed. Cautious. She frowned.

Killua adjusted his bag. “Sorry...who are you?” 

“Oh dear, that’s right. I-I know Bisky. She’s told me a lot about you.” 

“Has she,” Killua said doubtfully. 

“Don’t worry,” the woman laughed, “Nothing bad, I promise.”

Killua hummed, looking her up and down, and then to the statue. She must have moved here in the interim when Killua hadn’t visited. “This new?” he asked about the statue.

The lines around her the woman’s mouth deepened. “Oh...not especially so. About five years, I’d guess. Bisky was responsible for putting it here. Went through all that work...just because I said it looked a bit lonely over here.” The woman turned her attention toward Killua, expression unreadable. “This place used to attract a lot of worshipers. It felt right.”

Killua took a step back, observing the quiet wall of trees. He guessed it did look a little lonely. “She’s thoughtful like that,” he said.

He climbed the rest of the way, parting from...well, he didn’t even get her name. 

He met Bisky in the doorway. She hugged him around the neck and led him inside. They chatted over tea, although Killua didn’t touch his--it was far too hot to drink in this weather.

“One second,” Killua interrupted. “I was wondering if this was yours...” He took the kabuki mask from his bag. “It could be my mom’s, since she loved the plays so much, but I thought I’d ask you first.”

Bisky stared at the mask, open-mouthed. She put her teacup down on the saucer with a sharp  _ clat _ . Gingerly, she slid the mask from Killua’s hands and turned it over.

“You see there?”

She pointed at an etching on the inside of the mask’s chin.

“It’s a name,” she said.

It was so faded, Killua could hardly tell what it said--but now that she’d pointed it out, it was just two simple characters: Gon.

Killua furrowed his brow. “So...not yours?”

Bisky scanned the mask with shimmering eyes. She took a deep breath.

“I think it’s time I show you something.”

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay! that's it :)
> 
> I wanted to put this here b4 leaving this thing be; I took a lot of inspiration not only from hxh and hotarubi no Mori e, but also from the movie portrait of a lady on fire (at least, one part of it). the title of this fic comes from an original telling of the story of eurydice and orpheus (I can't remember which one currently oop), but in portrait of a lady on fire they interpreted orpheus turning around as a request by eurydice. in hotarubi, the movie pretty much ends when gon's equivalent actually catches the kid who falls in the first scene of this last chapter. but, with w this melting pot of different stories, I preferred the one that wasn't a cautionary tale that ended because of a mistake or fluke, but one that was about mercy and closure and acceptance. which...I thought fit gonk and kiwi better.......
> 
> anyway I had a lot of fun writing this, I hope u had fun reading it. thank you!


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